Library of Congress. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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Shelf. 






<?£L<^c^u, &Slf 










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THOUG 



ON 




MATERIALISM: 



AND ON 



RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS, 



AND 



SABBATHS. 



BY 



HENRY BRADSHAW FEARON. 




LONDON 



LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, and LONGMAN, 

PATERNOSTER-ROW. 

1833. 




DTTPUCA^y 



#^ 



f* 



PRINTED BY RICHARD TAYLOR, 
RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET. 



CONTENTS. 



MATERIALISM A SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE. 

Chap. Pa ge 

I. Historical Sketch of lmmaterialism 1 

Immaterialism of the Heathens. — Transmigration of 
Souls. — Spurzlieim. — Purgatory. — Modern Immate- 
rialists. — When is the Soul requisite ? 
II. Organization . 15 

Matter.— Life. — Birds, Dogs, &c. — The Brain. — In- 
sanity.— Lawrence. — Transfusion of Blood. — How can 
Matter think? 

III. The Scriptural Evidence 35 

Clement V. — Tillotson. — The Jews. — Daemons. — Soul. 
— Spirit. — The Translators of the Scriptures. — Breath, 
Life, Wind, Air. — Solomon. — Dead Souls. — Milton. — 
Elijah. — Stephen. — Jesus. 

IV. The Teaching of the Apostles 62 

Figurative Language. — Teaching of Jesus. — " Fear not 
them that kill the body," &c. — Hell. — Delivering 
unto Satan. — Moses and Elijah. — Paul in the Third 
Heaven. — The Transfiguration. — Spirits. 
V. Intermediate State S3 

Purgatory. — Luther. — Calvin. — Sleep of the Soul. — 
Lazarus. — Intermediate State. — Angels. — Spirits in 
Prison. — Saul and the Witch of Endor. — Witches. — 
Evil Spirits. — Ventriloquism. — The Crucifixion. — Pa- 
radise. 
VI. The Resurrection 106 

Locke. — Thomas Paine. — Priestley. — Second Coming of 
Jesus. — Conscious Identity. — Bishop Law. — Paul. — 
1. Corinthians xv. — Alexander's Paraphrase. — Resto- 
ration of the Jews to their own Land. — Personal Reign 
of Jesus at Jerusalem. — Mr. Bclsham. 
a2 



IV CONTENTS. 



FASTS, FESTIVALS, SABBATHS. 

Chap. Page 

I. Heathen and Jewish Festivals 126 

Holy Days. — The Thirty-nine Articles. — Bishop Laud. 
— Jewish Ceremonies. — Charles Butler. — The Calen- 
dar. — Christmas Day. — Mallett. — Strutt. — Brady. 
— Brand. — The Northern Nations. — Bishop Laud. — 
Altars. — Wakes. — Latimer. — Henry VIII. — Easter. 
— Yule. — Christmas Carols. — Romans. — Saturnalia. 
—Festival of Fools.— The Nativity.— The Established 
Church. — Dissenters. — John Wesley. — Unitarians. — 
The Paradisaical Sabbath. — Mosaic History of the 
Creation. — Lyell's Geology. — Paley. — Michaelis. 
II. The Jewish Sabbath 168 

The Archbishop of Dublin. — The late Christian Advo- 
cate (the Rev. T. S. Hughes).— Mount Sinai. — Dr. 
D wight. — Sabbatical Year. — Jubilee. — Jewish Sab- 
bath not religious. — Le Clerc. — Vitringa. — "Holy 
Convocation." — Jennings. — Equality of the Jewish 
People. — Conduct of Jesus as to the Sabbath. — The 
Synagogue. — Paul opposed to the Sabbath. — The Sab- 
bath not a Part of the Moral Law. — Professor Lee. 

III. The Lord's Day, or -Christian Sabbath 187 

Dr. Blomfield, Bishop of London.— "The Day of the 
Lord." — Second Coming of Jesus.' — "First Day." — 
Agapae, or Feasts of Love. 

IV. A National Sabbath 207 

Miss Martineau. — Dr. AdamClarke. — Edgeworth's Town. 
— Dr. Blomfield. — Windsor Castle. — Scotch Sanctity. 
— American Sanctity. — The Condition of Man, and 
his Duties. 



MATERIALISM 

A SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE. 



CHAPTER I. 

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF IMMATERIALISM. 

WHETHER man shall, or shall not, live again, is a 
question in the solution of which may be said to be in- 
volved the very highest considerations; and from Phere- 
cydes downwards, the philosophers in common with the 
multitude have borne testimony to the strong hold which 
the inquiry has, and from man's nature and circumstances 
is calculated to have, upon the human mind and cha- 
racter. 

The advocates for immortality may be divided into 
four classes. The believer in futurity, without other 
than human authority, by means of a presumed imma- 
terial, and immortal spirit ; — the believer in futurity, not 
because of the existence of an immaterial principle, but 
of a communication of the fact by Divine authority ; — 
the believer in futurity, who amalgamates the specu- 
lations of the former with the faith of the latter; — and 
the rejector of each of the above systems, whose belief is 
founded upon the assumed common consent of mankind, 
as to the desire for future life, and the undoubted power 
of the Creator of man to confer the same. To estimate 



A THE IMMATERIALISM OP THE HEATHENS. 

the evidence upon which these systems are asserted, the 
following pages will be devoted ; but with the especial 
object of advocating the Scriptural doctrines upon the 
subject, which may justly be deemed to teach the mate- 
riality of man, and the doctrine of the Resurrection 
from the Dead, as based thereon. 

The hypothesis of the soul's immortality being, even 
by the mass of defenders of Revelation, held as descrip- 
tive of the resurrection from the dead, much confusion 
of ideas as well as of phraseology has become current 
in this controversy. Thus it is popularly taught, that 
Materialism is practically a convertible term with that 
of Atheism, and that to deny the immortality of the soul 
is to deny a future state of existence ! * 

The history of the doctrine of the immortality of the 
soul is a history of the weakness and the ignorance of 
man ; and it affords the strongest evidence of the absolute 
necessity, upon the subject of future existence, for an ex- 
press Divine communication, to lead even the philosopher 
from his wild and contradictory speculations, and from his 
wanderings in the mental valley of the shadow of death, to 
a knowledge of the fact — " that every one which seeth the 
Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life : and 
that he will raise him up at the last day f." But in the 
eye of the Immaterialist, this simple declaration, devoid 
as it is of all scholastic mystery, has no charms; although, 
when he recurs to his modern authorities, he may discover 

* " Materialism is a word that has two different significations : one 
class Of materialists maintain that there is no Creator, and that matter 
has always existed ; another class teach a Creator, but maintain that 
man does not consist of two different entities, body and soul, and that 
all phenomena attributed to the soul, results from forms and combi- 
nations of matter." — Spurzheim's Philosophical Principles of Phre- 
nology, p. 100. 

f John vi. 40. 



THE IMMATERIAL1SM OF THE HEATHENS. 6 

that they are at cross purposes,, if not with themselves, 
yet they are so with their precursors ; and that even the 
heathen Fathers in the immaterial Church proposed sub- 
tilties the most irreconcilable with each other ; though, 
as it should seem, naturally enough originating in the 
speculative powers of the human mind, when engaged 
upon viewing man's nature, his apparent destiny, and the 
gloomy contemplation of a possible extinction of Being. 

Death being seen to end our mortal existence, the de- 
sign was at least a benevolent one, which should labour 
to discover the means to master this event. And thus 
efforts — originating in periods of mental darkness, and 
suited to the quackery of the Schools, to the cravings 
and the ignorance of man, and to the selfish interest 
of the Philosophers as well as of the Priests, — became, 
and still continue to be, formidable from authority, and 
powerfully operative from age. But the history of our 
species forces the conclusion, that all speculations upon 
man's condition and future hopes, when not derived from 
Revelation, have been wild, extravagant, and generally im- 
moral, — giving a sanction to practices tending to debase 
our nature, and to sink men to a low degree of ignorance 
and consequently of depravity. 

The Indians, the Chaldaeans, and the ^Egyptians — but 
more generally the latter — are supposed to have origi- 
nated, not the immaterialism of modern times, but that 
to which the theory is mainly indebted. The ^Egyptians 
maintained that the soul of man is immortal ; that when 
the body dies, it enters into that of some other animal ; 
and that when it has transmigrated through all terrestrial, 
marine, and flying animals, it returns to the body of a man 
again. The funeral rites of the Egyptians are supposed to 
have aided their speculations, as they embalmed their dead 
bodies, which they deposited in subterranean grottos, 

b2 



4 THE IMMATERIALISM OF THE HEATHENS. 

where they were supposed to live thousands of years. 
The Persians, according to the oracles of Zoroaster, be- 
lieved that all souls were produced from one fire, and 
therefore partook of the nature of the element from which 
they sprung. The Chinese consider the soul to be air, — 
to be material, but highly rarefied. 

The Stoics taught that the soul was a hot fiery blast : 
other sects of heathen philosophers, a hot complexion. 
Others held that it was the harmony of the four elements. 
Democritus contended that the soul was made up of round 
atoms, incorporated by air and fire. Some believed that 
the soul was aerial ; some, that it was earthy. Xenophon 
held that it was both watery and earthy. According to 
some of the Greeks, the soul of the universe was a vapour, 
or exhalation from the moist elements ; — so the souls from 
animals were vapours from their own bodies. Of those 
among them who considered the soul incorporeal, some 
asserted that it was a substance, and immortal; whilst 
others believed that it was neither. Thales taught that 
it was always in motion, and itself the origin of that 
motion. Pythagoras contended that it was a self- moving 
monad, or number. Plato, that it was a substance con- 
ceivable only by the understanding, and moving accord- 
ing to harmony and number. Aristotle, that it was the 
first continual motion of a body natural, having in it those 
instrumental parts wherein was possibility of life. The 
Manichseans taught that there is but one universal soul, 
which is distributed, in portions, to all bodies. Plato be- 
lieved in the existence of this universal soul, and sup- 
posed that all things lived by its influence; but that those 
only were living creatures that had separate souls : and 
it was held by some of the Greeks and others, that man 
was composed of three parts ; his body being derived 
from the earth — his soul from the moon — his spirit from 



TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS. O 

the sun ; and that, after death, each of these returned to its 
proper origin. Even Pythagoras and Plato taught that 
there were two souls ; one of a celestial nature, or the 
rational soul, — the other the material soul, being the seat 
of the passions ; and that both these souls were united to 
the body. Whilst Aristotle taught that there were three 
souls ; all distinct, as to essence and substantiality, yet in 
one body : viz. a rational, a vegetative, and a sensitive soul ; 
two of which act, before the rational soul is induced into 
the body ; and, after that event has taken place^ then those 
two cease to act at all. 

In Stanley's Lives of the Ancient Philosophers, souls 
are placed in the next rank to daemons, but under three 
classes : — first, souls separate from matter, called super- 
celestial intelligences ; secondly, souls inseparable from 
matter ; thirdly, rational souls of a middle kind, imma- 
terial, incorporeal, and consequently immortal, having a 
self-generate and self-animate existence, proceeding from 
the paternal mind, seated in the moon, and sent down to 
the earth, in obedience to the will of the Father. It is 
added, That the soul of man will clasp God to herself ; 
that the paternal mind soweth symbols in the soul, and 
the soul being a bright fire, by the power of the Father 
remaineth immortal, and is mistress of life. 

The pre-existence of souls, and their transmigra- 
tion, form prominent features in these several speculations; 
but, in relation to transmigration, great variety of expla- 
nation is offered. Some believed in only one species of 
soul, making it to pass indiscriminately into the bodies of 
plants and animals ; others in two ; and others, as many 
as there are species of animals. Jamblicus confined his 
view of transmigration to those of the same species, con- 
tending that every soul had a species of structure exactly 
suited to its own faculties. To each of the three classes 



O TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS. 

Plato has assigned a separate residence; — affixing the 
first in the belly, the second in the chest, the third in the 
head. Some considered that the soul, after its separation 
from the body, remained without one. Others assigned 
to it a body, and sent it to the clouds, — to the stars, — to 
some happier region ; and some, to the bowels of the earth. 
Most (like our modern immaterialists) taught that the body 
was a prison ; and that the soul, while placed in it, was 
surrounded with darkness, and shut up as in a dungeon; 
whilst, on the contrary, others held that souls were re- 
markably anxious to occupy an earthly tenement. Ac- 
cording to Virgil and other authorities, only a few souls 
retained possession of Elysium; — the rest returned into 
mortal bodies, after a thousand years ; but, before they 
revisited the upper regions, they were compelled to drink 
of the waters of Lethe ; an oblivion of former impressions 
being deemed necessary, for the purpose of preventing their 
repining, because of the extent to which their fiery energy 
and celestial origin were to be again shackled and ob- 
scured, when they should be encumbered with bodies that 
were noxious and vile. Sallust asserts, that were it not 
for these transmigrations, the Deity would be under the 
necessity of creating a soul for every new body ; and that, 
as in time this number would be infinite, they could not 
be contained within a finite world. The rational souls, he 
states, never migrate into the bodies of irrational animals, 
but follow those irrational bodies, as daemons who possess 
or attend upon men. Some indeed imagined, that the 
soul, at last, after wearing out a number of bodies, would, 
in time, wear out itself, and perish for ever. 

Thus, without attempting to characterize the wisdom, 
or the folly, of such speculations, it will be apparent that 
these learned heathens, these philosophers, — to dissent 
from whom subjects us to the wrath of professed believers 



THE DOCTRINES OF JESUS. / 

in this world, and to threats of eternal damnation in the 
next, — ascribe to the soul hardly one quality in common 
with each other ; the whole tending to prove that the 
Book of Nature, however suited for study, has afforded 
but indifferent instruction, when not associated witL and 
directed by, Divine Revelation. This consideration natu- 
rally leads us to the inquiry, Why and how has it oc- 
curred, when man was favoured with Divine instruction, 
that these heathen absurdities should, so far from being 
destroyed by the light of Revelation, become actually in- 
corporated with its truths; and be even now held, by the 
great body of professed believers, as necessary to faith 
in its doctrines, and essential to a participation in its 
hopes ? This inquiry will, perhaps, be best answered by a 
reference to the rational and simple grounds upon which 
Jesus and the Apostles promulgated their divinely author- 
ized doctrine of a future life. What they taught they were 
commissioned by God to proclaim ; and, without occupy- 
ing themselves with philosophizing upon the component 
parts of our frame, they viewed man as he was, — a think- 
ing and a responsible being, who had been called into ex- 
istence by the power of God, and who would be raised 
from a state of death by the same power; and by this 
means, and this means alone, receive a continuation of 
existence. This mode of simplifying the conceptions of 
futurity was too humble for the philosopher, too enlight- 
ened for the priest, and too rational for the mass of so- 
ciety ; — the very fact of a crucified man having been the 
promulgator of such a doctrine was a stumbling-block to 
many ; and the Resurrection from the dead was even held 
to be the teaching of a strange God, and laughed at, by 
the philosophers of Athens. 

There is reason to infer from the writings of the 
Apostles, that, even during their lives, the leaven of 



8 PURGATORY. 

heathenism had evinced its influence; for there were 
among the believers to whom they wrote, those who had, 
by philosophy and vain deceit, laboured to beguile them 
with enticing words of man's wisdom, to the worshiping 
of spirits and angels and daemons, giving heed to fables, 
rather than to godly edifying. 

Speedily after this period, a race of men arose, claiming 
to be the successors of the Apostles, who added thousands 
of professors to the faith, but at the lamentable sacrifice 
of the principles of Revelation. The Greek philosophers 
now became the disciples of Jesus, and succeeded in effect- 
ing the unholy union of the assurance of a resurrection 
from the dead and a future judgement, with the heathen 
doctrines before recited, — doctrines admirably suited to the 
art and to the cupidity of the Catholic Church ; a church 
which, in after ages, added a third to the two established 
receptacles for immortal souls, appointing it as a tempo- 
rary place of residence, where some were purged (hence 
Purgatory) by fire ; and out of which a soul could not be 
delivered till after the expiration of a considerable time, 
or, of that which was of more importance, a satisfaction 
to the priest for his prayers in its behalf*: — a tenet this 
purely of heathen origin, and adopted with most religious 
punctuality : for, as among the Greeks it was usual to 
put a piece of money into the mouths of the dead, for the 
purpose of paying Charon to transport their souls over the 

* " Thomas Aquinas makes the pains of purgatory to be as violent 
as those of hell. The Rhemists say that souls are not in a bad con- 
dition. Durandus gives them some intermission from their pains on 
Sundays and holidays." — Priestley's Early Opinions, vol. i. p. 419. 

Gregory the Great {Dial. lib. 4.), says that God has created three 
kinds of vital spirits : that of angels, which is not clothed with flesh ; 
that of men, which is clothed with flesh but does not die with the flesh ; 
and that of brute animals, which is clothed with the flesh, and dies 
with it. He states that before the restoration of the body the souls of 



THE IMMATERIALISM OF THE FATHERS. 9 

Styx to the Elysian fields, so the Catholics placed a silver 
coin in the mouths of their dead, to pay Peter for opening 
the gates of heaven. The heathens taught also, that the 
souls of the deceased wandered about the universe until 
they arrived at the river Styx, thence to he transferred to 
the Elysian fields : and the Catholics, imitating their tu- 
tors, asserted that all souls wandered about the earth until 
their arrival in purgatory. 

Ghosts, too, when once tainted, were required to be puri- 
fied by brimstone ; as without this the bodies into which 
they were designed to migrate would be of a more degraded 
character. These operations, so suited to active, but so 
burthensome to sluggish souls, are happily rendered by 
Dryden : 

" What feels the body when the soul expires — 
By time corrupted, or consumed by fires ? 
Nor dies the spirit, but new life repeats 
In other forms — and only changes seats : 

Then death, so call'd, is but old matter drest 
In some new figure, and a varied vest. 
Thus all things are but alter'd — nothing dies ; 
And here and there the unbodied spirit flies, 
By time, or force, or sickness dispossest, 
And lodges, where it lights, in man or beast; 

The immortal soul flies out in empty space, 

To seek her fortune in some other place." — Ovid's Metam. b.xv. 

The Fathers, borrowing their views from paganism, 

some of the righteous, but not of all of them, are received into heaven. 
To the question, in what manner the corporeal fire of hell can lay hold 
on the incorporeal soul, he replies, If the incorporeal spirit is held in 
the body of the living man, why after death should it not be held in 
corporeal fire ? And for further satisfaction he relates, among various 
other instances equally conclusive, that a holy man in the island of 
Lipari saw the soul of Theoderic the Arian thrown by the deceased 
Pope John and Symmachus the patrician into the crater of the volcano, 
on the very day on which those to whom heboid it found on their return 
to Italy that he had died. 



10 MODERN IMMATERIALISTS. 

taught doctrines respecting the soul's immortality often 
differing from each other, and all in an equal degree opposed 
to Revelation. Tertullian held, that the soul of Jesus at 
his death descended to those of the patriarchs, and that 
the soul of Adam came from God. The Church, in the 
days of Origen, had not determined whether the soul was 
eternal, or created for a certain time; whether it was the 
cause of life, or was merely confined in the body as a 
punishment for previous transgressions. Origen taught, 
that all souls had existed from all eternity, and were 
imprisoned in the body as a punishment for their sins ; 
and from his days to the present, under some mode of 
explanation or other, the immateriality and immortality 
of the mental powers have been most singularly held by 
most sects of believers, in common with the deistical and 
atheistical philosophers. 

Amongst the moderns, inconsistencies of opinion have 
hardly been less marked. Thus Digby, in defining the 
qualities of the soul, says, " that it is able to move and to 
work without being moved or touched; that it is in no 
place, and yet not absent from any place ; that it is also 
not in time and not subject to it, — for though it does con- 
sist with time, and is while time is, it is not in time." 

Watts states, that there are two immaterial principles, 
or souls ; one for life, the other for thought and agency. 

Lord Bacon, whilst some of his views would lead to an 
adoption of the materiality of man, endeavours to draw a 
distinction between inspired and sensitive souls. 

Hartley ably shows that man may be material : yet 
afterwards, as if alarmed at his discovery, shrinks back 
upon the heathen hypothesis; asserting, — and that too after 
having explained much of the phenomenon of life without 
the agency of any distinct immaterial principle, — that man 
consists of two parts ; one of which is that substance, 



MODERN IMMATERIALISTS. 11 

agent, or principle, to which we refer our sensations and 
voluntary motions : and that the thinking powers proceed 
from what he mystically terms, the infinitesimal elemen- 
tary body. 

Dr. Price (the most able of the modern immaterialists) 
propounds his creed as consisting of four parts ; yet those 
parts would almost class him amongst his adversaries : — 
he states, First, "That I am a being or substance, and 
not a mere configuration of parts. " Secondly, "That I 
am one being, and not many." Thirdly, "That I am 
a voluntary agent." Fourthly, "That my senses and 
limbs — my eyes, hands, &c. — are instruments by which I 
act, and not myself; or mine, and not me." 

Locke (who upon this subject may perhaps be viewed 
as halting between two opinions) maintains that we have 
spiritual parts, but that they are " capable of motion;" 
and that created " souls are not totally separated from 
matter, because they are both active and passive ; and 
those beings that are both active and passive partake of 
both matter and spirit." 

Mr. Rennell* dissents from many of his predecessors, 
by admitting the possible extinction of the soul, and also 
by consenting to confer immortality upon brutes. The 
sources of life he describes as being composed of three 
parts ; — vegetation, volition, and the life of the under- 
standing. Whilst most immaterialists had agreed that 
the soul of man is rational, immaterial, and immortal, 
and that it possesses no qualities in common with the 
body : yet Mr. Rennell, an alarmist and a zealous advo- 
cate for immaterialism, has made two admissions, either 
of which would appear as tending to assimilate his system 
to those " dangerous errors" which he vouchsafes to re- 

* Remarks on Scepticism, by the Rev. Thomas Rennell, B. D. 
Christian Advocate of Cambridge: 1823. 



12 MODERN IMMATERIALISTS. 

fute. First, he allows that brutes, in common with men, 
may have immortal souls : and secondly, that the inhe- 
rently immortal principle may become extinct; for "the 
thinking principle is essentially indivisible, but if it cannot 
be decomposed it may perhaps he finally extinguished" 
Upon the first position let us ask, how the sloth and the 
oyster are to be disposed of in a future state, and will 
their souls inherit a consciousness of their previous ex- 
istence? Is the immortal soul of the ox or the ass, as well 
as that of their owner, a part of the Divine essence ? Are 
such immortal souls to be the companions of the " Chris- 
tian Advocate" in a future state of existence; and each, at 
the Judgement of the great day, appointed to their appro- 
priate situations ? And finally, Are there to be discovered 
in the writings of even any unbeliever, views in an equal 
degree "dangerous" to the doctrines of Revelation, with 
those which in this instance are so oracularly propounded ? 

"The sum (says Priestley, as to the united action of 
matter and spirit,) of the argument from the Scriptures, 
comes in aid of the arguments from reason and the na- 
ture of things, which show the utter incapacity of any con- 
nection between substances (or qualities,) so totally foreign 
to each other as the material and immaterial principles 
are always described to be, — having no common property 
whatever, and therefore incapable of all mutual action. 
Let the immaterial principle be defined in whatever man- 
ner it is possible to define it, the supposition of it ex- 
plains no one phenomenon in nature ; there being no more 
connection between the powers of thought and an imma- 
terial principle, than between the same powers and a ma- 
terial principle."* 

Thus far I have chiefly confined myself to a mere sketch 
of the doctrine of Immaterialism, its incorporation with 
* Priestley's Early Opinions, vol. i. p. 402. 



WHEN IS THE SOUL REQUISITE ? 13 

Revealed truth, and the explanations of its supporters ; 
reserving for the succeeding chapters the much-contro- 
verted points relative to the cause or causes of life, and 
of the rational powers of the human mind. And whilst 
I deem immaterialism under every form, as alike unsup- 
ported by reason and opposed to revelation, I admit the 
difficulties which a materialist in common with his adver- 
saries must ever find, when investigating the organization 
and the thinking powers of man. These difficulties, how- 
ever, press equally in principle, if not in degree, when the 
organization and the mind too of the monkey or the elephant 
are contemplated : and we may justly take exception to the 
Advocates, who, after conceding powers beyond their un- 
derstanding to the very "matter" whose properties they 
had been decrying, would announce their alarms, their 
piety, and their orthodoxy, only at a particular modifi- 
cation of matter : Whilst some content themselves with 
denying, "That medullary matter thinks*;" and yet fol- 
low up this oracular announcement by infusing into the 
fly and the oyster spiritual essences. Yet we might ask 
such writers, who are thus impiously bold in circum- 
scribing the modifications of matter even when directed 
by Infinite skill and contrivance, Where is the point at 
which the spiritual immortal being is discovered to be 
necessary ? Is it at the first production of the egg, or at 
the moment of its departure from the shell? If at the 
former, How many "immortal souls" have they waylaid 
at their breakfast-tables since they were appointed to 
suppress "dangerous errors"? If at the latter, What 
gives life to the sluggish, inert, "medullary" matter, 
previous to the breaking of the shell ? And, in regard 
to man, Where is the spirit rendered indispensable ? Is it 
in the sensibility of a nerve, — the voluntary movement of 
* See Rennell. 



14 WHEN IS THE SOUL REQUISITE ? 

a limb, — from thence to the exertion of any one faculty 
of the mind ? When and where was this spirit created ? 
Where was its residence before the formation of the body 
to which it gives life and thought ? At what period, and 
how, did it enter into and animate the body ? Does it 
grow with the body's growth, and strengthen with its 
strength ? or is it unprogressive in its nature ? How is 
it affected by sleep — by dreaming — by bodily wounds — 
by insanity — by swooning ? * And by what deductions 
of reason or of philosophy can such writers explain the 
union in one being of "two principles, distinct from, and 
possessed of no property in common with, each other ? " 
thus reversing the principles of Newton f, by admitting 
more causes than are sufficient to explain appearances, and 
by assigning similar effects to dissimilar causes. 

* See Lectures on Physiology, Zoology, 8fc. by W. Lawrence, F.R.S. 
f Principia, 



J5 



CHAPTER II. 

ORGANIZATION. 

If it can be shown that life and that mind are not incon- 
sistent with organization, this important controversy will 
thereby be much narrowed. And in committing myself to 
the affirmative, I am aided by an authority before quoted, 
who, perceiving that in this discussion a middle course 
could not be pursued, has boldly made the avowal, — that 
" if the point of life being dependent upon organization 
be once admitted, the immortality of the soul, and every- 
thing which distinguishes man from the grass on ivhich 
he treads, is utterly annihilated*." In receiving this 
concession with perfect satisfaction, let it be made the 
starting-post of the argument : and if it can be shown that 
"life and mind may be dependent upon organization," 
may we not say to the reverend immaterialist, that the 
doctrine of the soul's immortality will thereby be " anni- 
hilated/' 

Let us adhere to Newton's principles, — that to every 
effect there must be a cause, but that that cause must be- 
an adequate one ; and that when such is discovered, causes 
are not to be multiplied. We look at man, of whom we 
read in the Scriptures that he is made of the dust of the 
earth ; — that his Creator producing respiration by breath- 
ing "into him the breath of life," and thus imparting 
motion to his lungs, he became a living soul or person. 

We observe man at his birth, and during the first months 
* Rennell, page 89- 



16 ORGANIZATION. 

of his existence, — and we perceive the first faint dawnings 
of his mind ; that they are as weak and infantile as the 
body. As the senses acquire their power, the mind gra- 
dually strengthens, and advances with the body from 
childhood to puberty, and becomes adult when the de- 
velopment of the frame is completed*. When the organi- 
zation advances, then the mind, as it regards its vigour 
and its natural powers, advances also. We observe this 
machine in infancy — in manhood — in second childhood; 
we see its thinking powers grow, mature, and decay — 
with the growth, the maturity, and the decay of the orga- 
nization. We see the affections of the mind influencing 
and controlling the actions of the body ; and we observe, 
on the other hand, the diseases of the body controlling 
and influencing the affections of the mind. We attend 
"this quintessence of dust" to the awful approach of its 
worldly career ; and we there witness a gradual extinction 
of being, not in body only, but also in mind ; not of a part, 
but of the whole man. We view him, who had by his 
works or his principles benefited mankind, or by his arms 
and his intellect governed nations, rapidly undergoing dis- 
organization, and literally returning unto the dust from 
whence he came. We know that during his life the able 
exercise of his mental powers has been either encouraged 
or repressed, agreeably to his original organization, his 
education, his principles, and the degree of mental and of 
bodily activity which may have been promoted or neglected. 
We perceive that the possession of full vigour is of but 
comparatively short duration, either in mind, or in body ; 
and that with the decay of the organization, the mental 
powers decline also ; and, finally, we know that life — nay 
more, that mind — never has been known to exist, except 
in connection with organization. 

* See Lawrence. 



ORGANIZATION OF MATTER. 17 

What do we infer, or rather what does our reason 
compel us to conclude, from all this succession of pheno- 
mena ? The existence of an immaterial soul, having no 
quality in common with, while it acts upon, the body? 
Or, rather, that all these never-failing effects can best be 
explained by causes which are neither imaginary nor 
mysterious, and by rational and simple views of our 
organization. — This theory, supported as it is by the test 
of experience, has driven the defenders of an immortal 
soul upon the horns of a dilemma : either to admit that 
life and thought result from the modification and organiza- 
tion of matter, — or that matter can, by no possibility, be 
capable of such manifestations. And may we not in- 
quire — what human being has ever existed, who could 
discover what Matter can, or what it can not, be rendered 
capable of, by the great Architect of the universe ? — un- 
less, indeed, an authority before quoted may be regarded 
as an exception; who boldly makes short work of the 
powers of Omnipotence, by maintaining the impossibility 
of thought being the result of any organization. Locke, 
however, does not thus lowly estimate the capabilities of 
matter. " Solidity constitutes the essence of matter : 
whatever modifies solidity is matter : if God cannot join 
{organize) portions of matter together by means incon- 
ceivable to us, we must deny the existence and being even 
of matter itself." Views so opposite relative even to the 
capacity of matter may be safely left to its detractors to 
reconcile, with whom the ideas of a modern authority 
may not be without its influence. Barclay, an im- 
materialist, apportions to matter these capabilities : 
H Could it have been thought that sulphur, which is an 
inflammable substance ; and oxygen, so necessary to the 
maintenance of flame, — could have formed an acid which 
actually lowers the temperature of snow ? or that particles 



18 MATTER. LIFE. 

of heat could have been concealed in the coldest bodies ? 
Let us not, therefore, presume that the living qualities 
of animals are different from the qualities of matter* ." 
Thus one authority denies the possibility of matter pos- 
sessing life, even in its lowest manifestations ; another 
intimates, that it is capable of a modification of existence; 
and a third admits precisely the point contended for by 
the materialist, by virtue of whose creed it is, in truth, 
presumption to assert "that the living qualities of animals 
are different from the qualities of matter." 

MacLeay's definition of life is as follows : — " By the 
term life, we would express that faculty which certain 
combinations of material particles possess, of existing for 
a certain time under a determinate form, and of drawing 
while in this state into their composition, and assimilating 
to their own nature, a part of the substances which may 
surround them, and of restoring the same again under 
various forms. — Like gravity and electricity, we know life 
only by its effects. — And on the whole we conclude that 
it is not a being enjoying a distinct existence, but an ad- 
herent quality which must necessarily have a subject. It 
is a motive quality of matter like gravity, and without 
matter for its subject we have no reason to suppose that 
it can exist. It is to the organic body, what the expansion 
of steel is to a watch, or that of steam is to the engine : — 
but if we ask what is expansion? what is life? we can get 

NO ANSWER BUT A RECITAL OP THEIR EFFBCTSf/' 

* Inquiry into the Opinions concerning Life and Organization, p. 26. 

f In justice to Mr. MacLeay, the two paragraphs of the Horce Ento- 
mologies, from which the above extracts are taken, are here subjoined, 
entire : — " By the term life we would express that faculty which cer- 
tain combinations of material particles possess, of existing for a certain 
time under a determinate form, and of drawing while in this state into 
their composition, and assimilating to their own nature, a part of 
the substances which may surround them, and of restoring the same 



MATTER. — LIFE. 19 

These views of matter, if admitted, and also of life, as 
dependent upon organization, must be destructive of the 
doctrine of an immortal soul; for the strongest argument 
in its support has been hitherto deemed to rest upon the 
total impossibility of matter manifesting the properties of 
life without the residence of an immaterial spirit. And so 
essential to the system has this extreme position been es- 
teemed, that in a review of the works of Lawrence and 
Rennell, the following undisguised statement of that doc- 
trine occurs : 6i Wherever we see life, we will at once 
admit the existence of an immaterial principle, whether in 
the European, the Negro, or the oyster." 

again under various forms. This life must not be confounded, as it 
has too often been, with the life of an immaterial intelligent being, 
which is totally distinct, and seems to be nothing else than a name 
given to the duration of its existence or happiness. It is therefore only 
to the first-mentioned faculty that the observations immediately fol- 
lowing ought to be supposed to relate. 

" How this faculty is acquired, what is its immediate cause, or, in 
other words, whether there may not be several mediate causes between 
it and the Primary Cause, are questions to the solution of which we 
are totally incompetent. Like gravity and electricity, we know life 
only by its effects, or rather we are acquainted with the three only as 
so many names given to certain combinations of effects. The particu- 
lar combination or series of effects which we call life, differs from 
gravity or electricity in the circumstance that these effects are totally 
different from each other. They however all concur to the same 
object ; namely, the preservation of the individual and of the species. 
We observe, however, that during life, organic bodies can resist most 
of those chemical and more general laws which govern inorganic mat- 
ter, and can modify the inert properties of this by an apparatus of 
organs specially constructed for the purpose. And on the whole we 
conclude, that it is not a being enjoying a distinct existence, but an 
adherent quality which must necessarily have a subject. It is a mo- 
tive quality of matter like gravity, and without matter for its subject 
we have no reason to suppose that it can exist. It is to the organic 
body what the expansion of steel is to a watch, or that of steam is to 
the engine : — but if we ask what is expansion ? what is life ? we can 
get no answer but a recital of their effects." 

c2 



20 ORGANIZATION. 

May the immaterialist be asked, in the name of Revela- 
tion, Of what value, to moral and accountable agents, can 
such a principle of immortality be deemed, which thus 
presents the doctrine of future existence, not as " pecu- 
liar " to the Gospel, or even to human beings, but which 
is made to depend upon a principle common to the oyster 
and to man ? The honesty of the avowal, however, is not 
without its value ; and the more so, from its being one 
which many of the older immaterialists, whilst pressed 
with the contradictions inseparable from their system, 
were too wary thus nakedly to admit : for if their own de- 
finitions of matter be correct, then, as a consequence, a 
mouse or a mackerel must be composed of something 
more than matter ; and if the mental powers of man can 
not, by possibility, be the result of organization, — then, 
by analogy, the mental powers of the dog, the camel, and 
the elephant, can only be accounted for, from their pos- 
sessing, in common with man, immaterial souls. 

And further, upon the supposition of their position be- 
ing correct, immaterial souls must be conferred even upon 
a still lower scale of animal life than the selection above ; 
and we may proceed, if not quite, yet almost, to the 
vegetable kingdom; admitting, with Lamarck, that the 
passage from the least perfect plant to the least perfect 
animal, is quite insensible ; and that " where organization 
is the most simple, animals approach nearest to plants." 

But little superiority to the vegetable can be disco- 
vered in those aquatic animals which are described as 
masses of homogeneous and sensible pulp, through which 
there is a sort of nervous system. There are atoms 
too whose nature is so ambiguous as to be difficult to 
account for on the principle of animal life. The animal- 
cula which exist in myriads even in the vegetable part of 
creation ; the intestinal worms which grow in the liver of 



ORGANIZATION. 21 

sheep ; the thousand species of lice, and each peculiar to 
some plant or animal ; — all have life, and the means of 
existence. Thus the consistent immaterialist is placed in 
one of two situations : either to renounce his doctrine ; 
or to submit unconditionally to the hypothesis — that life 
cannot, even in the instances above given, result simply 
from organization ; and that, consequently, the minutest 
atom of animal life is inhabited by an immaterial spirit. 
To have, in plain language, such a position, is important 
to the argument ; the more so, from the fact that some of 
the defenders of an immaterial soul confine its possession 
to man, because of his mental powers : but this modified 
doctrine being overthrown by a reference to the qualities 
of the brute tribes, the results of such investigations have 
not unfrequently been manifested in either an unquali- 
fied admission of the materiality and natural mortality of 
the whole man, or the immateriality of all the animal 
creation ! 

A i( Medical Student of Oxford University," and also 
other immaterialists, have lamented that the Cambridge 
Advocate and his supporters should have admitted, as well 
as contended for, too much ; and have allowed that mere 
"life" maybe conceded to matter — that matter may be 
organized ; but that mental manifestations — that even any 
degree of the reasoning faculty — bespeak the want and 
necessity of spiritual agency ; that such agency is confined 
to human beings ; and that our faculties, in common with 
the tenure by which we hold an interest in futurity, are the 
result of Immaterialism. Still the criterion by which the 
existence of an immaterial spirit is to be attested, will, 
upon a reference to the brute creation, destroy this view 
of the subject : for it will be found that the exercise of 
mental powers, of memory, of deliberation, — of, in fact, 
mind, is not confined to the human species. In support 



22 BIRDS. 

of this view may be instanced the oft-repeated cases of the 
elephant^ the ourang-outang, the fox, the beaver, the bee, 
and the intelligence even of the ass, as especially mani- 
fested when travelling over the Alps, or of the mule in 
traversing the Andes. 

Mental powers are alike manifested by the feathered 
tribe ; for " in the breeding season numerous troops of 
puffins visit several places on our coasts, particularly the 
small island of Priestholm near Anglesey, which might 
well be called Puffin-land, as the whole surface appears 
literally covered with them. Soon after their arrival in 
May, they prepare for breeding ; and it is said, the male, 
contrary to the usual oeconomy of birds, undertakes the 
hardest part of the labour. He begins by scraping up a 
hole in the sand not far from the shore, and after having 
got to some depth, he throws himself on his back, and 
with his powerful bill as a digger, and his broad feet to 
remove the rubbish, he excavates a burrow with several 
windings and turnings from eight to ten feet deep. He 
prefers, when he can find a stone, to dig under it, in order 
that his retreat may be more securely fortified* " 

et Many other remarkable circumstances might be men- 
tioned, that would fully demonstrate faculties of mind, not 
only innate, but acquired ideas, derived from necessity in 
a state of domestication, which we call understanding and 
knowledge ; — this bird (the Ferruginous Thrush) could 
associate ideas, arrange and apply them in a rational man- 
ner according to circumstances : for instance, if he knew 
that it was the hard sharp corners of the crumbs of bread 
that hurt his gullet and prevented him from swallowing 
it, and that water would soften and render it easy to be 
swallowed, this knowledge must be acquired by observa- 

* See Library of Entertaining Knowledge : Architecture of Birds. 



THE DOG. 23 

tion and experience. Here he perceived by the effect, the 
cause ; and then took the quickest method to remove that 
cause, — What could the wisest man have done better*?" 

(( It is related of M. Dupont de Nemours that he had a 
cow, which singly knew how to open the gates of an in- 
closure : the herd waited impatiently near the entrance 
for their leader. — I have the history of a pointer, which, 
when kept out of a place near the fire by the other dogs 
of the family, used to go into the yard and bark ; all im- 
diately came and did the same; meanwhile he ran in, and 
secured the best place. I also knew of a little dog, which, 
when eating with large ones, behaved in the same manner 
in order to secure his portion, or to catch some good bits. 
It is true that animals are not confined in their actions 
solely to such as are required for their preservation, — they 
vary their manners according to the circumstances in 
which they live, and are susceptible of an education be- 
yond their wants j-." 

u The modification produced in the different races of 
dogs, exhibits the influence of man in the most striking 
point of view. These animals have been transported into 
every climate, and placed in every variety of circumstances ; 
— they have been made the servant, the companion, the 
guardian and the intimate friend of man : and the power of 
a superior genius has had a wonderful influence, not only 
on their forms, but on their manners and intelligence. Dif- 
ferent races have undergone remarkable changes, in the 
quantity and colour of their clothing. There are differ- 
ences also of another kind, no less remarkable ; as in size — 
the length of their muzzles — the convexity of their fore- 
heads \r 

* Wilson's American Ornithology, p. 11 9. 

f See Spurzheim's Origin of the Mental Faculties. 

J LyelL's Geology, vol. ii. p. 126. 



24 THE " DESIRE " FOR IMMORTALITY. 

Do not these facts demonstrate that memory, delibe- 
ration, judgement, mind, are not confined to the human 
animal ? And hence the position which goes to confer 
spiritual agency on man, because of his mind, — must be 
deemed untenable : and, except by abandoning the whole 
immaterial system, its supporters cannot well avoid being 
driven to the same concessions which they have con- 
demned in others ; — namely, that if immaterialism be 
true, the ape, equally with the philosopher, is animated 
by an immaterial spirit. Amidst the contradictions com- 
mon to immaterialism, one party, as a guide to our paths, 
tells us that although brutes have souls, yet that "an im- 
material spirit is not, as such, necessarily immortal." 
Thus the system, as the supposed ground or means of 
future existence, is by such an admission shaken to its 
base. Some of its lawgivers, indeed, were wont to con- 
tend that " immaterial spirits were inherently immortal ; 
and that they were immortal because they were imma- 
terial." But if there is to be a classification of souls, 
some mortal and some immortal, — who can maintain that 
the soul of man, if he possess one, is not as mortal as his 
body? And how can the mind be extricated from the 
endless labyrinth of doubt and uncertainty into which, by 
such an hypothesis, it must be plunged ? Another autho- 
rity, as a lamp to our feet, states, — that while all living 
beings are inhabited by immaterial souls, yet that it is 
probable man alone has succeeded in gaining those which 
will not die. The means by which to apply the test of 
immortality to these spirits is not supplied — at least, not 
from the Scriptures : but the Christian Advocate has oddly 
enough taken us back — not to Jesus, but to Plato ! ! 

"The very desire of immortality which distinguishes 
the human soul, is of itself a powerful argument for the 
attainment of its object; for there is no desire of the hu- 



THE "DESIRE " FOR IMMORTALITY. 25 

man mind of which man has not some means of fulfilment ! 
As, therefore, in man the existence of this rational desire 
is a strong presumption in favour of its gratification ; so 
absence of the desire in the animal is almost a proof that, 
from its very nature, it is incapable of immortality*'." 

This antiquated and somewhat dangerous argument in 
favour of a future state, hardly presents sufficient strength 
for undergoing dissection ; as a very slight acquaintance 
with the human mind will show that the mere existence of 
a " desire" is not a "presumption" at all, much less a 
stro?ig one, "in favour of its gratification." Instances 
present themselves in the "desire" for riches and for 
power, — desires which doubtless "distinguish" man from 
"the animal;" and which, "strongly" and "univer- 
sally " as they unquestionably exist, are yet found to 
furnish, anything rather than a rational and confident as- 
surance of their gratification. But passing from these, and 
a numerous catalogue of desires, which are but partially 
gratified, and which are deemed to belong "peculiarly" 
to the human race, for the purpose of instancing in 
illustration one desire which is cherished alike by the 
peasant and by the philosopher, by the king and by the 
beggar, and yet it never has been gratified — the desire 
for a longer continuance of life than that naturally allotted 
to man. Now as this desire is truly " universal," and does 
"distinguish man from the animal," — what reason can be 
furnished not merely for its non- accomplishment, but that, 
deeply as it is rooted in the human heart, yet its existence 
does not add one moment to our present life ? But if the 
position referred to were a just one, — then, by virtue of its 
possession of the requisite qualifications, man would not 
require futurity, for he would, by his "desires," insure to 
himself immortality in the present state of things. 
• Rcnnell, p. 115. 



26 THE BRAIN. 

We now view, in brief, the creeds of Immaterialism ; 
and they appear to be : First, That matter cannot pos- 
sess life ; anci that, consequently, in its very lowest possible 
state of animation, there must reside within it an imma- 
terial spirit. 

Secondly, That matter may be so organized as to have 
mere life, but not mental qualities. 

Thirdly, That immaterial souls are not, as such, neces- 
sarily immortal. 

It is imperative upon immaterialists to demonstrate — 
Why, and on what principle, matter divinely organized 
should be incapable of exercising the functions of animal 
life. — Why, if an immaterial principle be necessary to ac- 
count for the manifestation of mind in the child or the 
idiot, it is not also necessary for the dog or the horse. 
— Why, if it be conceded to these animals, it should be 
denied to the mouse and to the maggot. 

Still, as it is held that because of the superior intellect 
of man, an immaterial and immortal spirit is indispensable, 
a few instances connected with the life and mind of our 
species may be the easiest mode of attesting' the bearing of 
this argument. And first let us view the phaenomena of 

The Brain : and, as connected therewith, the manifes- 
tations of our mental faculties ; which, without referring to 
the invaluable discoveries of Dr. Spurzheim, are deemed by 
a host of physiological authorities to depend upon its or- 
ganization. In evidence of this may be instanced the fact, 
that the minds of the mass of Negroes and of Hottentots 
are found to be inferior to those of the mass of Europeans. 
And looking for causes adequate to the production of facts 
so well attested, something beyond the differences arising 
from education, climate, and civilization, would seem to 
be requisite : and such causes at once challenge our ob- 
servation, not, as is asserted by Lawrence, because of the 



ORGANIZATION. 27 

organization of the brain of the Negro or the Hottentot 
being less perfect, but that their brain manifests a national 
and distinctive organization; and this peculiarity of struc- 
ture is not less discoverable in the results of their mental 
powers, than in the outward and visible signs of their 
peculiar conformation. In like manner the mental charac- 
ter of the ourang-outang may be said, when compared with 
other species of the same tribe, to exhibit proofs of some 
degree of superiority ; and this superiority which places 
him above other monkeys, can be best accounted for from 
his organization : but still, that organization, whilst it is 
perfect for the purposes for which the animal is destined, 
is not comparable to the lowest class of mankind. 

The confined degree of intellect in the idiot has been 
often found to proceed from defective or from diseased or- 
ganization of the brain. Among the brute tribes, too, the 
dog and the elephant are placed above some other animals ; 
and they manifest a superior cerebral structure. Thus 
organization easily accounts for the varieties in man and 
in animals. But once withdraw this simple and compre- 
hensive solution of our physiological inquiries, and sub- 
stitute immaterial and self-existent agency, and we be- 
come involved in incomprehensible contradictions and 
absurdities. 

The capability of thinking, that marvellous mental pro- 
cess, which the immaterialist deems to be too attenuated 
for organized matter, is found to depend upon the sound 
state of our bodily powers, — especially of the brain. 

The importance of such facts as these to the settlement 
of this controversy having been foreseen by Mr. Rennell, 
he attempts to arrest their consequences, by intimating 
that the mind has attained to its full vigour, not at thirty, 
but at seven years of age. 

" Cases" (see Rennell) " daily occur, where the strength 



28 ORGANIZATION. 

is gone, the vital principle rapidly retreating, and the pa- 
tient is lying helpless, hopeless, waiting for the very mo- 
ment of impending dissolution ; yet his mind shall be as 
vigorous, his judgement as sound, his imagination as 
ardent, as in the days of his health and strength; and 
even in the very convulsions of bodily death, the life of his 
understanding and his affections shall be unimpaired." 

Here, without concealment, Immaterialism is carried 
out to a large extent ; and we may very contentedly go 
along with the author, assuming, that if man has an im- 
material and immortal soul, then, indeed, the facts might 
be expected as above stated; but their constant and inevi- 
table occurrence must be held to be inseparable from the 
conclusion which is attempted to be established; assuming, 
as it does, that death releases the soul from its u prison- 
house/' Thus, if death be an advantage with regard to 
thinking, then disease should be a proportional advantage; 
so that the nearer the body approaches to a state of disso- 
lution, the freer and stronger ought to be the faculties of 
the mind. 

The argument in support of Materialism will not sustain 
any injury from an admission that such cases as the above 
may occur, — but not "daily;" they are very rare and extra- 
ordinary instances, — the exceptions, not the rule. And 
taking death as the touchstone of the immaterial hypo- 
thesis, the contemplation of, and preparation for, a season 
of perfect liberty to the soul, together with the weakened 
state of its u sluggish prison," ought to cause vigour and 
ardour not merely equal, but increased, as compared to that 
of any former period — at least during its connection with 
matter. Cases it may be noted also occur, in which great 
vigour of body is experienced even at "the very moment of 
impending dissolution." And if the case put can be deemed 
to support Immaterialism, why may not the latter fact as 



INSANITY. 



29 



successfully prove the immortality of the body, as the other 
instances do the immortality of the mind ? But both are 
alike beside the question ; the rule being one from which 
even the most gifted mortal cannot claim exception, — that 
the mind becomes weak as the body tends towards death ; 
and that, as it regards any sudden increase of energy im- 
mediately preceding the termination of our mortal career, 
it will be found that occasionally a temporary stimulus has 
excited the feeble mind to a short-lived exertion, or that 
from a change in the circulation, or the remission of in- 
flammatory action, it has in our declining moments re- 
sumed its wonted vigour. 

From the organization of the brain, from the mental 
manifestations connected therewith, and from the influ- 
ence which it communicates to and receives from all other 
parts of the body, we proceed to instance that dreadful 
affliction of the mind — Insanity. 

The insane mind, upon reference to our medical insti- 
tutions, will not be found to be treated as the disease 
of an immaterial spirit* ; and Lawrence states that he 
has examined, after death, the heads of many insane per- 
sons, and has hardly ever seen a single brain which did 
not exhibit obvious marks of disease. Insane symptoms, 
too, he acutely observes, have the same relation to the 
brain that vomiting has to the stomach, cough to the lungs, 
or any other deranged function to their corresponding 
organs. These views are fortified by the effects produced 
upon insane persons; in regard to whom vigorous medical 
treatment is found to be as efficacious as when applied 
to an arm, a leg, or any other member of the frame of 
man. And can it be maintained that the immortal mind 
changes with age, and is different in the same person, 
a child, adult, or decrepit ? " insanity being generally 
* See Haslam on Madness. 






30 THE BLOOD. TRANSFUSION. 

manifested at certain periods of life, and most frequent 
(idiotism excepted) between 30 and 40, less between 20 
and 30, very young and very old people are hardly known 
to become insane. Thus the manifestations of the mind 
are the most liable to derangements when they are the 
most energetic, and this is the case when the cerebral or- 
ganization is the most active*." 

What, it has been pertinently asked, should we think of 
persons who gravely told us that jaundice was a disease of 
an immaterial principle ; that asthma was an affection of a 
spiritual being ; and that insanity was the disorder of an 
immortal soul? A ready reply presents itself, — that such 
persons were not cautious and prudent; but that they were 
consistent, and perhaps the only class of consistent de- 
fenders of immaterialism, — the inconsistencies enume- 
rated being less chargeable upon the advocates than the 
system. 

From the Brain and its diseases, some phenomena con- 
nected with the Blood may also tend to show that life, as 
well as mind, can be best accounted for, from a view of our 
organization ; — a view not unsupported in the earliest re- 
cords of our species ; the Divine Being having thus an- 
nounced his will to the Patriarch : " But flesh with the 
life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eatf." 

The circulation of the blood, and the interesting facts 
connected therewith, are generally known. Our phy- 
sicians having succeeded, in an extraordinary manner, in 
what may be almost denominated a renewal of life, by 
means of the transfusion of blood, — a practice, as recorded 
in the Philosophical Transactions, which was successfully 
pursued in the 17th century. Dr. Lower states that he 
procured a dog of an ordinary size, and two mastiffs ; he 
opened the jugular vein of the small dog, and permitted 
* Spurzheim on Insanity, p. 106. f Gen. ix. 4. 



COMMENCEMENT OF THE SOUl/s UNION WITH THE BODY. 31 

his blood to flow till he ceased to howl, became feeble, 
and fell into convulsions. The Doctor then transfused the 
blood of one of the mastiffs, till the vessels of the small 
dog were again filled ; — and exhausted the blood of the 
mastiff, which consequently died. He then closed the 
incision in the jugular vein of the small dog, which, upon 
being untied, leaped from the table and fawned upon its 
master. The Doctor's experiment was carried further, by 
applying the principle to human beings, and with extra- 
ordinary success, — a success which, when applied to the 
"higher orders/' tended to expose the prejudices which ex- 
isted as to noble and ignoble blood : for it was found that 
the blood even of a prince might be improved, or the im- 
mortal soul kept alive within a baron's body, by a few 
ounces of blood extracted even from the calf or the fox. 
But these experiments, however successful, were found to 
be too levelling, and were by those in authority, ultimately, 
and wisely in their generation, suppressed, lest the "order" 
should be contaminated. 

Passing from particular details to the combined qualities 
of the frame of man, and taking the human offspring not 
merely at the period of its birth, but even prior to that 
event, it has with great propriety been asked, — Could the 
immaterial mind have been connected with it at this pe- 
riod ? The believers in the separate existence of mind 
have left us quite in the dark as to the precise time when 
the soul enters into its prison-house and unites the earthly 
dust with the immaterial essence. But the Roman Catho- 
lics, who are not in this particular inconsistent in their 
immaterialism, solve all difficulties, by deciding that the 
embryo is inhabited by an immortal spirit, and therefore 
the Church appoints, in case of danger, such religious ce- 
remonies as are deemed to be essential to the exigency. 

In proceeding from minute details to a review of gene- 



32 HOW CAN MATTER THINK? 

ral principles, it should seem that the doctrines of Imiiia- 
terialism totally fail to supply either adequate, or even 
comprehensible, causes for the endless varieties which 
are presented by all created beings ; and in looking from 
the insect up to man, an immaterial agency fails in ac- 
counting, even according to the doctrines of its supporters, 
for admitted facts and effects. Why therefore should the 
position be contested, that matter variously modified and 
organized offers an intelligible solution of, and an ade- 
quate cause for, all these effects ? And should the difficulty 
be raised as to how matter can perceive, remember, judge, 
reason, — the oft-repeated reply at once presents itself by 
shaping a similar inquiry for the immaterialist, as to how 
spirit can perform these operations, and what evidence can 
be given of even the existence of spirit, with the qualities 
ascribed. But are we, because we cannot tell how these 
various phenomena are accomplished, therefore to ac- 
quiesce in the gravest absurdities, and the most mon- 
strous contradictions ? It certainly is not known hotv the 
brain accomplishes its purposes ; but, as has been well 
stated, all are equally ignorant as to how the liver secretes 
bile, how the muscles contract, how any living purpose is 
effected, how bodies are attracted to the earth, how iron 
is drawn to the magnet, or how God exists ; — and, with 
Elihu in Job, we may ask, " Dost thou know the ba- 
lancing of the clouds, the wondrous works of Him who is 
perfect in knowledge* ?" 

A careful observance of nature and of experience, con- 
nected with and based upon rational views of the Scrip- 
tures, are our only guides, in relation to ourselves and our 
destiny : if we travel beyond their teaching, we become 
involved in a labyrinth from which there is no deliver- 
ance. And touching inquiries as to how the mechanism 
* Job xxxvii. 16. 



SCRIPTURAL VIEWS. 33 

of nature is carried on, we shall find every thing around 
us beyond the reach of our intellects, — from the stone 
which falls to the earth, to the comet which traverses 
the heavens ; from the most minute manifestation of ani- 
mal life, to the production of an Abraham and a Moses, 
a Paul and a Jesus. We do not know hoiu we shall 
exist in a future life : but we have the assurance of the 
appointed messengers of God, that we shall do so ; and 
we are not left to mere speculation, as to the means 
of our re-existence, — the Resurrection from the Dead, not 
an inherent immortality, being proclaimed by competent 
authority to be such ; and when satisfied with the evidence 
upon which that authority rests, we are enabled to com- 
pare it with the doctrine of the natural immortality of the 
living and thinking powers of man. Immaterialism we 
find to be irreconcileable with the known facts and effects 
which are characteristic of living and thinking beings ; 
besides which it is involved in inexplicable and endless 
absurdities and contradictions ; we therefore turn with 
satisfaction to the opposite hypothesis, and persuade our- 
selves that it sufficiently solves all our difficulties, by ad- 
mitting evidence so tangible that we may be justified in 
concluding that every manifestation of life, or of mind, 
which we see in creation, may result from one principle, 
simple in itself, but variously modified and organized, 
suitable to, and explanatory of, the circumstances, condi- 
tions, and nature of every living being; and we feel justi- 
fied in concluding, in relation to the whole of animal life, 
that which Napoleon did of man only, that they are " ma- 
chines for the purpose of life, organized to that end ; 
like a well-made watch, destined to go for a certain 
time*." 

Such being the conviction, and such the feelings, in- 
* See Las Casas. 



34 WORKS OF GOD. 

duced by these views, may we not turn with high satis- 
faction to the Psalmist, and say with him, of the Supreme 
Being, — ie I will praise thee, for I am fearfully and won- 
derfully made. Marvellous are thy works, and that my 
soul knoweth right well. If I ascend up into heaven, thou 
art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell 
in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy 
right hand lead me. O Lord! thou hast searched me and 
known me ; thou knowest my down-sitting and mine up- 
rising. — O Lord ! how manifold are thy works ! in wis- 
dom hast thou made them all. The earth is full of thy 
riches.' ' 



35 



CHAPTER III. 

THE SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCE. 

" The more any man is convinced of the immortality of the soul 
from the principles of Aristotle or Des Cartes, the less will he concern 
himself about the Gospel account of futurity." — Archdeacon BlacTcbume. 

As introductory to the Scriptural portion of this argu- 
ment, it may be well to refer to one or two documents, 
characteristic of the age in which they appeared, and which 
were deemed to possess no ordinary degree of authority. 

The canon of Leo X. will not be found deficient in the 
qualities which similar statements generally possess, 
whether of Catholic or of Protestant origin. " Some 
have dared to assert concerning the nature of the reason- 
able soul, that it is mortal ; we, with the approbation of 
the sacred Council, do condemn and reprobate all such, — 
seeing, according to the canon of Po]ie Clement the Fifth, 
that the soul is immortal; and we strictly inhibit all from 
dogmatizing otherwise : and we decree, that all who adhere 
to the like erroneous assertions, shall be shunned and 
punished as heretics." — -In passing from Catholic to Pro- 
testant authority, the honour of condemning such as dis- 
sented from the doctrines of Plato and Socrates was par- 
ticipated in by our English Reformers : and on the Conti- 
nent, after the second Helvetic Confession was published, 
in an article supposed to have been drawn up by Beza, 
under the title " The Creation of all things, of Angels, 
the Devil, and Man," it is solemnly announced, after a 
description of the qualities of the soul, as well as those of 
the body— that " We condemn all who scoff at the im- 

d2 



36 THE SCRIPTURES— CLEMENT V. 

mortality of the soul, or bring it into doubt by subtle dis- 
putations." 

Unconvinced by these and other announcements of an 
equally formidable description, may we not be content to 
rest our faith upon Scriptural evidence, rather than upon 
the " Canon of Pope Clement the Fifth," although His 
Holiness, armed with infallibility, proclaims that the soul 
is immortal ? But still, despite of this declaration, there 
is some satisfaction in turning to the authorities on the 
adverse side of this controversy ; and amongst such, few 
have in an equal degree distinguished themselves with the 
English ecclesiastic before quoted, who candidly admits 
of his Protestant brethren, that, (( either unable or unwill- 
ing to investigate the meaning of certain terms used in the 
Scriptures," they "weakly concluded, from the mere sound 
of them, that the doctrines of the Scriptures and the reign- 
ing philosophy" (concerning a future state) "were one and 
the same thing." What that "reigning philosophy," was, 
and, to a great extent, still remains, has been stated in 
the previous pages ; and what those "certain terms" are, 
which, from their "mere sound," have been pressed into the 
service of this philosophy, it is of first importance in this 
investigation to ascertain with accuracy. But in conse- 
quence of the obscurity which those who attempt to fasten 
Immaterialism upon the Scriptures have cast upon this 
subject, I deem to be desirable the recognition of these 
several positions : — 

First — That as, from an investigation of nature, a di- 
stinct spiritual and immortal principle in man is admitted 
not to be discoverable, we can believe in such from Reve- 
lation only; and that, too, explicitly and distinctly com- 
municated; and which being therefore free from ambiguity, 
would not be capable of being misunderstood. 

Secondly — That the fact of a merely popular belief 



TILLOTSON, 



37 



by the Jews, of doctrines not expressly revealed by God, 
cannot be received as evidence of the truth of such doc- 
trines. And; 

Thirdly — That the language of the Scriptures should be 
taken agreeably to the sense in which it was generally 
understood when they were written ; and in connexion 
with the context ; and also in consistency with the general 
scheme of Divine Revelation. 

With these positions distinctly recognized, we proceed 
to an examination of the Old and New Testaments, bear- 
ing in mind the case put by the supporters of immaterial- 
ism — that upon the truth of that doctrine depends our 
only hope of future existence. And in so vital a feature 
of our faith, is it contending for too rnuch, that the Scrip- 
tural evidence in its support should be clear, distinct and 
intelligible, — and not, as is singularly and reluctantly, 
though certainly with much honesty, admitted by its ad- 
vocate, Tillotson, "that the immortality of the soul is 
rather supposed, or taken for granted, than expressly re- 
vealed in the Bible?"* — It may, however, be shown that 
the bishop is in error ; even as regards what he asserts to 
be thus " taken for granted" in the Bible. 

It will avail little to the argument that the mere word 
"soul" is to be found in our Bibles ; for words, taken 
alone and independent of their connexion, are not usually 
held to establish doctrines; and in illustration of this view 
we might instance that all-important tenet in the faith of 
believers — the existence and attributes of the Divine Be- 
ing : for upon reference to the Scriptures, it will be found 
that the word "God," (were there nothing but the term 
itself,) would fail in conveying to us either that there was 
one only God, or that he was a self-existent being; for even 
this term is applied in the Scriptures to princes and magis- 
* Sermons, vol. ii. 



s 



38 THE JEWS. 

trates. The recurrence, likewise, however frequent, of 
" spirit/ 5 or " soul," any more than that of " God," 
must fail, if adduced, to establish any, much less leading 
and important doctrines. Nor, looking at the language 
of the Scriptures, will the argument be aided, should it 
be conceded that the Jews believed in the existence of 
Spirits, and the interference of such, in bodily shapes, with 
human affairs : not to note that the defenders of immaterial- 
ism might be called upon to prove the consistency of such 
alleged appearances with their own views — namely, that 
the soul is immaterial — aerial — not sensible to the sight 
or to the touch ? Besides, without taking into the ac- 
count the superstitious tendency of the human mind, and 
its proneness to speculate upon, and its ignorance of, fu- 
turity, it should be remembered that the Israelitish people 
having emerged from an heathen nation, and having fre- 
quently been captive among others, they must necessarily 
have imbibed much of the false philosophy, and many of 
the absurd notions and speculations of such nations ; and 
the Jewish history shows the almost herculean labour 
which Moses and the Prophets had to sustain, in order to 
purge them from their old impurities. They also 'evinced, 
in the early part of their history, a strong attachment 
towards idolatrous worship, and, as connected therewith, 
a predisposition to believe in the existence and power of 
innumerable gods; so that any opinions held by this 
people, which were not derived from their divinely ap- 
pointed teachers, cannot be entitled to the slightest weight 
in this argument. The discussion, therefore, cannot be 
aided by a reference to the unauthorized opinions of the 
Jewish people. Should it even appear that the first 
followers of Jesus held views not unfavourable to imma- 
terialism, — that some of his immediate disciples (being 
Jews) should have shared in the popular faith, — or that 



DAEMONS. 



39 



even Jesus himself, when addressing the multitude, made 
use of the popular language of his country, — even these 
combined facts would neither teach the truth of the doc- 
trine, nor prove that its belief was inculcated by revealed 
religion. And in illustration, the case of daemoniacal pos- 
sessions might be adduced ; for this doctrine has for its 
support all the points of authority above referred to ; 
namely, the popular belief of the Jews, the occasional re- 
ferences to it in the Scriptures, and the language of Jesus 
and his Apostles : yet daemons were not expelled from 
within the sufferers, but certain diseases were cured. But 
if the superstitions of the Jewish nation, and the use, by 
Jesus or the Apostles, of the ordinary language of the 
times, be held to establish leading doctrines of Revelation, 
then the immaterialist must take the consequences of his 
own argument, and be compelled to admit that Mary 
Magdalene was not cured of an excruciating disease, but 
had actually expelled from within her seven devils ! But 
it is not thus that the Scriptures announce valuable truths 
and essential doctrines; for when such are communicated, 
they are not left for inferential discovery, neither are they 
to be collected from precarious and doubtful sources of 
authority : and had the doctrine of the immortality of the 
soul been true, it must have been communicated in a man- 
ner equally distinct, because equally required to be so, as 
that even of the existence of but one God — of pardon upon 
repentance — and of the resurrection from the dead. Thus, 
in relation to God and to his providence, the following are 
the clear and distinct announcements : "X the Lord speak 
righteousness, I declare things that are right. Who 
hath declared this from ancient time ? have not I the 
Lord ? and there is no God else beside me ; a just God 
and a Saviour; there is none beside me. Look unto me, 
and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, 



40 UNITY OF GOD. PAUL AT ATHENS. 

and there is none else*." And whenever the Prophets or 
Apostles reason upon the being and attributes of the 
Deity, they are, as the above is, clear, distinct, and in- 
telligible. Thus, in the instance of Paul, when addressing 
the Athenian philosophers — "God that made the world 
and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven 
and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; 
neither is worshiped with men's hands, as though he 
needed anything ; seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, 
and all things f." In what is designed here to be con- 
veyed, can there be a rational doubt that it is the one- 
ness, the power and attributes of the Supreme Being ? — 
The doctrine also of the forgiveness of sins upon repent- 
ance, and that of a future state of existence by means of 
a resurrection from the dead, are equally clear and intel- 
ligible]:. And can it be believed that had the immateri- 
ality and immortality of the soul been a Bible doctrine, 
it would not have been taught with equal plainness and 
distinctness ? And if so, then would it have derived its 
chief support from popular ignorance — have called for aid 
from Socrates or Plato ? would its elucidation have de- 
pended upon Catholic Councils or Protestant Confessions 
of faith ; or, like the system which Tillotson advocates, be 
required "to be rather supposed or taken for granted." The 
archbishop's admission, indeed, upon this point, may be re- 
garded as of important service in the present controversy, 
seeing that it puts into the hands of his opponents a tri- 
umphant weapon against his own doctrine; for neither 
Jesus nor the Apostles required their adherents to take 
their principles "for granted;" and it is difficult, if not 

* Isa. xlv. 19—23. f Acts xvii. 24, 25. 

% In relation to the first of these doctrines consult the following pas- 
sages : Matth. iii. 2. iv. 1/; Luke xxiv. 47; Acts v. 31. xi. 18. xxvi. 20. 
And upon the latter, sec Acts iv. 22 ; 1 Cor. xv. 



SOUL. — SPIRIT. 41 

absurd^ to conceive that the sole foundation of the future 
hopes of the Believer should rest upon a doctrine u not 

EXPRESSLY TAUGHT IN THE BlBLE." 

Without further pressing these important concessions 
of our most gifted adversaries, and without more minutely 
dwelling upon the entire absence of that clear and di- 
stinct evidence which must characterize a doctrine thus 
pre-eminently important, — we proceed in the inquiry with 
an examination of the terms Soul and Spirit, and the 
uses to which they have severally been applied by the 
authorized translators of the Scriptures. The Hebrew 
nephesh # admits of the following renderings : mind; 
soul; breath; life; body ; person; ivilL The Greek 
psuche f may be translated, breath; life; soul; spirit; 
mind; or person. The Latin anima J, life; soul; breath; 
wind. In our own language also, the word soul, from the 
Saxon sawel §, is used variously, and our authorities give 
it the following renderings : soul; spirit; life; mind. The 
word spirit has a different derivation, although it is fre- 

* " ttf53 anima, spiritus. The animal life, or that principle by which 
every animal, according to its kind, lives ; Gen. i. 30. [every beast, — 
fowl, &c. wherein there is life, f the soul of life.] Which animal life, so 
far as we know any thing of the manner of its existence, or so far as the 
Scripture leads our thoughts, consists in the breath, (Job xli. 21. — xxxi. 
39- to lose — life,f to breathe out the soul,) and in the blood; (Lev. xvii. 
11. 14. [the life,\ the soul, of the flesh is in the blood.] Jer. ii. 34. [the 
blood of the souls of poor innocents.']) is supported and refreshed by 
meat and drink, (Numb. xi. 6. Psal. cvii. 5. Isai. xxix. 8. Lam. i. 11. 
19.), and is taken away when the animal dieth or is slain, Gen. xxxvii. 
21. [Let us not kill hirn,f smite him in the soul.] Deut. xix. 6. 11. Psal. 
lvi. 13. — cxvi. 8. Prov. i. 19- Jer. xv. 9- Isai. xxxviii. 17. Psal. xlix. 
15. — xciv. 17. Jobxxxiii. 30." — See Taylor's Hebrew Concordance. 

The primary meaning of tDtM, rendered soul in Isaiah lvii. 16, is also 
air, wind, breath. 

t Psuche, from psucho, to blow. 

I From the Greek word anemos, wind. 

§ Written also sawul, saul, and sawl : Danish siel ; Belgic siele : 
Moeso-Gothic saiwala. 



42 THE TRANSLATORS OF THE SCRIPTURES. 

quently used as a convertible term with that of soul. The 
Hebrew ruach denotes wind; spirit; the power of the 
Deity; mind; vigour; life; breath; person*. The Greek 
pneuma (hence Pneumatics,) is rendered, breath; spirit ; 
wind; the air. The Latin spiritus, breath; wind; 
spirit; mind; soul. 

It will thus be apparent that our translators were not 
hampered as to the adoption of appropriate terms, in 
rendering the original into the English language : and it 
might be shown, that in relation to Immaterialism, in 
common with other popular doctrines, the authorized 
version has been deeply tinged with the corrupt theo- 
logy of the State ; the translators having been but too 
apt to depart from the invaluable rule, that u a transla- 
tion of the Bible should express every word in the original 
by a literal, verbal, or close rendering, where the English 
idiom admits of it," a rule of translation which has since 
been ably exemplified by Archbishop Newcomb, whereas 
they ought to have either selected such terms as could not 
fairly have led to misconception, and to have rejected all 
which were of a doubtful or equivocal meaning; or, if they 
were determined to retain the latter, they should have used 
them without favour or affection, equally and in all cases; 
so that the very connexion in which they would have been 
found constantly to occur, must have enabled the ordinary 
reader to understand their general import : thus, by their 
occurring in passages which were plain and definite, such 
uses of the words would naturally be employed for the 
purpose of explaining those which were less so. But, in 
truth, neither of these rules has been systematically fol- 
lowed, arising, amongst other circumstances possibly, 

* Lardner gives these as the senses in which ruach is used : the 
air, wind, breath, life, spirit, divine influence or will : see his Letter on 
the Logos. 



THE TRANSLATORS OF THE SCRIPTURES. 43 

from the fact that the Scriptures were parcelled out to a 
number of persons for translation : these parties were also 
professors of orthodox and mystical doctrines, and they 
might, without an evidently corrupt design, naturally feel 
inclined to bend the text to the reigning orthodoxy of the 
times. 

In the case of the address of the King of Sodom to 
Abraham, the discretion of the translators would seem 
to have been correctly exercised: — i£ Give me the persons, 
and take the goods to thyself*." But in the Jewish law, 
the same term is there rendered soul-, and that, too, 
in a case where, from the connexion, it is self-evident 
that it should have been person : (i And whatsoever man 
there be that eateth any manner of blood, I will even set 
my face against that soul that eateth blood ; for the life 
of the flesh is in the blood f." In the Book of Lamenta- 
tions, — where the case is equally plain, though, from the 
difference of the subject treated upon, capable of possible 
misconception, — the translator presents us with the term 
soul. " The Lord is my portion, saith my soul (mind) . 
The Lord is good unto the soul that seeketh him:]:." 

Of the Greek pneuma, we may look at the instance of 
Paul, when showing the Corinthians that it is the mind of 
God which knoweth the things of God, and the mind of 
man which knoweth the things of man. u For what man 
knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit (mind) of 
man, which is in him ? even so the things of God knoweth 
no man, but the spirit of God§." Here the translators 
have chosen the term "spirit," when another, that of 
mind, which could not by possibility have been miscon- 
ceived, was equally at their service. In other cases, how- 

* Gen. xiv. 21. f Levit. xvii. 10, 11. 

§ 1 Cor. ii. 11. 



44 BREATH — LIFE WIND — AIR. 

ever, they have pursued the opposite course; as where they 
have fairly rendered the term wind, in the address of Jesus 
to Nicodemus : " The wind bloweth where it listeth, and 
thou hearest the sound thereof; but canst not tell whence 
it cometh, or whither it goeth*." But clearly the trans- 
lators should, in the one case as in the other, have exer- 
cised a sound discretion in the choice of such English 
phrases as would have given the sense which corresponded 
with the context ; or they should, in every available case, 
have made use of the terms soul or spirit: and thus the 
very facts of the preservation of uniformity must have 
operated as a valuable preventive of misconception, or of 
a tendency towards the belief of false doctrines. 

Having thus barely glanced at the translation of some 
of the passages which bear upon the present doctrine, it 
may be well to refer to such portions of the Scriptures as 
have been held to teach, or in any way support, Imma- 
terialism. And as in this, more perhaps than in most 
controversies, it is desirable to have definite positions for 
examination ; and in the absence of such on the side of the 
defenders of immaterial ism, may we aim at supplying their 
deficiency, by classifying such points as may faithfully re- 
present their system? 

First, it is contended on Scriptural grounds, that God 
imparts to, and also withdraws from, the body of man, an 
immaterial, immortal soul or spirit : and Secondly, that 
the Apostles and Prophets, on various occasions, sanction, 
by their language, a belief in the doctrine of the immor- 
tality of the soul. It is also held by some of the sects of 
immaterialists, that the Scriptures indirectly support their 
doctrine, by teaching that there is an intermediate state of 
life after the death of the body, until the general resurrec - 
* John iii. 8. 



Solomon's reflections. 45 

tion ; — the inference being, that there must therefore be a 
soul, because in the grave the body is entirely decomposed. 
As these positions, particularly the two first, are mainly 
supported by a reference to passages of the Scriptures in 
which the Hebrew and Greek terms occur to which we 
have already referred, — previously to an examination of 
particular passages, a brief classification of the various 
senses in which these words have been, or should be taken, 
may be useful : and for ease of reference, the following is 
submitted — Breath; Life; Person; Body; Wind, or Air; 
Mind, and the Affections. And from the passages which 
will be offered, it may further incidentally occur, that, 
whilst in many cases our translators have correctly chosen 
that term which best accorded with the sense of the ori- 
ginal, — yet that in numerous instances in the common ver- 
sion, where the word soul or spirit occurs, one or other 
of the above terms might have been selected, as being freer 
from any tinge of popular error or probable misconcep- 
tion. 

Breath. — In Genesis, vii. 21 — 22. where the relation is 
given of the destruction caused by the Flood, it is said, " All 
flesh died that moved upon the earth; both of fowl, of 

cattle, and of beast, and all in whose nostrils was the 

breath of life, that was in the dry land, died." The breath, 
(or soul,) here clearly belongs alike to the beast and to 
man. In the Book of Ecclesiastes, the translators use in 
the same connexion and in the same sense "spirit " and 
"breath." From the verse which contains the former term, 
a most absurd conclusion has been drawn : the plain and 
forcible reflections of Solomon, upon the brevity of human 
life, being construed, or rather tortured, into a defence of 
the doctrine of an immortal soul ! " For that which be- 
falleth the sons of men befalleth beasts ; even one thing 



46 BREATH — LIFE. 

befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, 
they have all one breath: — all go unto one place; all are 
of the dust, and all turn to dust again *." Thus far all 
is simple and incapable of misconception : but, lest mate- 
rialism should be taught, and that too from the mouth of 
Solomon, confusion and mystification is incorporated with 
his sentiments, by the abandonment of the word " breath" 
and the substitution of " spirit; " and that, too, in the verse 
immediately following the above, and in the same con- 
nexion : "Who knoweth (distinguisheth) the spirit of 
man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that 
goeth downward to the earth f?" Here substitute the 
word — used by the translators themselves in the preceding 
verses — breath, and no difficulty occurs : Man's figure being 
erect, his spirit, or breath, goeth upwards ; and that of 
beasts being the contrary %, their spirit, or breath, descend- 
eth: — the argument and conclusion of the writer being, 
that when they cease to breathe, then their existence is 
ended ; man, equally with the beast, returning to the dust 
from whence they came. 

The term "breath" is used as the means, or rather the 
evidence, of the possession of life, by various authorities; 
in our language; — 

" She shows a body, rather than a life — 
A statue, than a breather." — Anthony and Cleop. Act iii. Sc. 3. 

Plutarch, too, represents the infant in the womb as nou- 
rished by nature like a plant; and when it is brought forth, 
as being u refreshed and hardened by the air, it being a 

* Eccles. iii. 1.9, &c. f Eccles. iii. 21. 

% Quae variis videas licet omnia discrepare formis, 
Prona tamen facies hebetes valet ingravare sensus. 
Unica gens hominum celsum levat altius cacumen. 

Boethius, lib. v. met. 5. 



LIFE IN THE BLOOD. 47 

breathing living animal." And Plautus uses the word soul 
as convertible with that of breath* — 

" Thy wives' souls stink." 
Thus also in the early part of Genesis, in the relation of 
the covenant with Noah, " Behold I, even I, do bring a 
flood of waters upon the earthy to destroy all flesh, wherein 
is the breath of life, from under heaven ; and every thing 
that is in the earth shall diet.'' So, in perfect accordance 
with this application of the term, Paul describes the Deity 
to the heathen philosophers as a "God that made the 
world, and all things therein; and giveth to all life, and 
breath, and all thingsf " 

Life. — Amongst other instances which occur through- 
out the Scriptures, the following is offered from the Book 
of Job, in the reply to Zophar : u I am as one mocked of 
his neighbour ; — the just and upright man is laughed to 
scorn. But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; 
and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee; and the 
fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee; — the hand of the 
Lord hath wrought this, in whose hand is the soul (life) 
of every living thing, (i. e. the beasts, the fowls, the 
fishes,) and the breath of all mankind}" And such life, 
or soul, or spirit, is in the Scriptures represented as exist- 
ing in the blood. Hence Noah and his sons are commanded 
not to eat flesh which contained blood : " Flesh with the 
life thereof, which is the blood thereof, ye shall not eat || ." 
And in the levitical service, the blood, which was com- 
manded to be poured out on the altar of burnt-offerings, 
and some of which would unavoidably run under the altar, 

* An fcetet anima uxori tuse ? 

Impellunt animce lintea Thraciae. — Hor. 

Aqua, terra, anima, et sol. — Far. ex Enn. 
f Gen. vi. 17. + Acts xvii. 25. 

§ See Job xii. &c. || Gen. ix. 4. 



48 DEAD SOULS. 

is described as being the life (soul or spirit) of the animal 
which had been offered in sacrifice. Xenophon likewise 
uses the Greek term, rendered soul, in a corresponding 
meaning: — "Ye have preserved your souls" (lives). "He 
hath deprived my dear and only son of soul." And in a 
corresponding sense the Latin anima is used by Virgil: — 
" He vomits forth his purple soul." 

Person. — In the triumph of the Israelites over the five 
kings, Joshua relates, that "the Lord delivered them into 
the hands of Israel, who smote therm, and left none re- 
maining : and he smote all the souls, utterly destroying 
them, and there was not any left to breathe*." See also 
in the Book of Numbers, where Eleazar the priest com- 
mands the Jews in what manner they should divide their 
spoil, in which place the word soul is used as appli- 
cable equally to beasts and to men : " Divide the prey 
into two parts ; between those that went out to battle, 
and between all the congregation : and levy a tribute unto 
the Lord ; one soul out of five hundred both of the per- 
sons, of the beeves, of the asses, and of the sheep j-." 

So also in the New Testament : When Peter addressed 
the Jews in the temple, he warned them that, as Moses 
had taught, " The Lord your God will raise up unto you a 
prophet; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he 
shall say unto you. And it shall come to pass, that 
every soul that will not hear that prophet, shall be de- 
stroy ed%" 

Body. — In the Mosaic law, relative to the vow of the 
Nazarites, the Jews are commanded — u All the days that 
they separate themselves, they shall come at no dead 
body" (dead soul). In the Book of Numbers, commands 
are given at greater length not to touch any dead person : 

* Josh. xi. 11, &c. fNumb. xxxi. 27, 28. J Acts iii. 23. 



WIND. OR AIR. 49 

" He that toucheth the dead body of any man, shall be 
unclean seven days;" (marginal readings, "the dead soul 
of any man.") " Whosoever toucheth the dead body of any 
man that is dead," (dead soul that is dead,) "and purifieth 
not himself, defileth the tabernacle of the Lord ; and that 
soul shall be cut off from Israel. And whosoever toucheth 
one that is slain, or a dead hody^ (dead soul,) " or a bone 
of him, shall be unclean seven days. For an unclean per- 
son" (unclean soul) "they shall take of the ashes of the 
burnt heifer of the purification for sin. But the man that 
shall not purify himself, that soul shall be cut off from 
among the congregation. And whatsoever the unclean 
person toucheth shall be unclean; and that soul that 
toucheth it shall be unclean until even*." 

Wind, or Air. — The powers of the Deity are thus de- 
scribed by Amos : — " Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel ! 
for lo, he that formeth the mountains, and createth the 
wind, the Lord, the God of hosts, is his namef ." So in 
Zechariah's vision, the four spirits there described are 
the four winds: "Then I answered, and said unto the 
angel (messenger) that talked with me, What are these ? 
and the angel (messenger) answered, These are the four 
spirits (winds) of the heavens $." 

In a similar sense the Latin phrase spiritus, is used 
by Virgil : — 

" When the northern blast 
Roars in the iEgean." 

And the English word ghost, being of the same root with 
gust (of wind§), is often used in a similar sense by our old 
writers. Thus Sydney represents Lucretia as having been 
precipitated into such a love-fit, that in a few hours " she 

* See Numb. xix. 11. to end. f Amos iv. 13. J Zechariah vi. 5. 
§ German, Geist. Wind, breath, spirit , fancy , a. ghost. 

E 



50 MTND, AND THE AFFECTIONS. 

ghosted;" and in the same sense, in the received version 
of the Scriptures and elsewhere, to "give up the ghost," 
is used for the giving up of life, the ceasing to breathe, as 
the ceasing to possess the means of life. 

Mind, and the Affections. — Thus Jesus, when 
quoting the prophecy of Isaiah concerning himself: — 
" Behold my servant, whom I have chosen ; my beloved, 
in whom my soul (mind) is well pleased*." So in the 
Acts: — "The multitude of them that believed were of 
one heart and of one soul (mind)t. ; " Also, as descrip- 
tive of the affections of the mind: — "Shechem's soul clave 
unto Dinah, and he loved the damsel %." "The soul of 
Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan 
loved him as his own soul§." "Hearken diligently unto 
me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul de- 
light itself in fatness ||." 

From these several cases, it will appear that the phrases 
rendered soul and spirit, are all of them capable of a ren- 
dering which does not imply or give the least support to 
the doctrine of an immortal, immaterial principle in man, 
distinct from his body, and from what may be called his 
animal life. It has, indeed, been well said, on what is 
considered orthodox authority, "that this word in Scrip- 
ture, especially in the style of the Hebrews, is very equi- 
vocal^." If such then be the fact, why have not our 
translators selected terms which are not "very equivocal,' ' 
such clearly being at their disposal ? Or why have they 
sometimes retained the words soul and spirit, and at others, 
the sense and context being precisely similar, rendered 
them by intelligible phrases, as life, breath, &c. ? To have 
been consistent, they should either have always avoided 

* Matth. xii. 18. f Acts iv. 32. + Gen. xxxiv. 3. 

§ 1 Sam. xviii. 1. || Isaiah Iv. 2. 

^[ Crudcn's Concordance. Article " Soul." 



MAN A LIVING SOUL. 51 

the use of these phrases, or have always employed them. 
A valuable inference, however, flows directly from this 
classification ; as it shows that the mere terms soul or 
spirit, thus arbitrarily adopted by our translators, ought 
not, and cannot be esteemed to teach the doctrine of im- 
materialism. 

Having thus referred to the meaning of the terms 
employed in this controversy, I proceed to the investiga- 
tion of that class of passages which comes under the 
first position — That God, at the formation of man, im- 
parts to, and, at his death, withdraws from the body, an 
immaterial and immortal soul. Taking first the history of 
the creation, as recorded in the Book of Genesis, it is there 
stated, that after the heavens and the earth were formed, 
God having made every living thing after its kind, then man 
was called into being, and allowed to have dominion over 
all other animals ; and it is affirmed that (i the Lord God 
formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his 
nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul*:" 
that is, a living person — a living body — a breathing, living 
man; any of these forms of expression being, not allowable 
merely, but actually essential to the sense of the original. 
But had our translators, in their use of this term, only been 
consistent even throughout these two first chapters of the 
Book of Genesis, we should not anticipate that a defender 
of immaterialism would resort for argument to the Mosaic 
account of creation : for only eighteen verses previous to 
the one just quoted, it is stated that God said, " Let the 
waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that 
hath life;" — the same term afterwards rendered soul — • 
and the margin of the old translations reads — "that 
hath soul." And in the 30th verse of the 1st chapter, 
every green herb is offered for meat "to every beast of the 
* Gen. ii. 7. 

e2 



52 THE BREATH OF LIFE. 

earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that 
creepeth upon the earth wherein there is life;" — in the 
Hebrew the same word as that rendered soul, and in the 
margin of our old Bibles — "To every thing that creepeth 
upon the earth which hath a living soul." But, without 
placing an exclusive reliance, which well might be done, 
upon, first, the acknowledged variety of terms in the trans- 
lation; and, secondly, the application of the words "a liv- 
ing soul," equally with man, to every thing which " creep- 
eth upon the earth," I look at that which is supposed to be 
the most difficult passage, the 7th verse of the 2nd chapter : 
God, we are told, out of the dust of the earth, "formed 
man;" that is, the whole man; not a part of him, not a 
mere shell, but the entire and complete machine : the ma- 
terials with which this machine was formed are described 
as being, not in part, but solely "the dust of the ground:" 
they were material therefore, and perishable — not imma- 
terial and immortal. " And he breathed into his nostrils 
the breath of life:" the formation of the machine pro- 
ceeding (for the relation, in accordance with human lan- 
guage, is given as though there had been three stages in 
man's becoming a living person or soul) ; the air entering 
the nostrils — the lungs becoming inflated, — the heart beats 
— the blood circulates, — and then this organized machine 
becomes a living person, or soul. The general process 
of creation is described in a similar manner : — " These 
are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when 
they were created, in the day hat the Lord God made the 
earth and the heavens ; and every plant of the field before 
it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it 
grew." Thus far the earth, the heavens, the herbs, and 
the plants, are described as having, like man, been "form- 
ed:" but a something additional is still, in both cases, 
required for perfecting the thing so made. In regard to 



CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD. 53 

the former, "the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon 
the earth; " consequently, though made, it was not fer- 
tile; and the "plant of the field/' and "the herb of the 
field/' could not vegetate or grow; but " there went up a 
mist from the earth, and watered the face of the earth:" 
then, but not till then, the earth brought forth plenteously, 
and the plant and the herb " grew;" — consequently, this 
"mist" and its results were to vegetables the cause, or 
principle, of life, in the same way that the breath, which 
passed through man, was so to him : for as it was the rain 
which caused the plants and the herbs already formed, to 
groiv, — so it was likewise the breath, or vital air, and not 
any immaterial principle, which, passing through the lungs 
of man, already created, caused him to breathe, and move, 
and live, and he forthwith became a living being. The 
process of vegetable life began in the one case — the pro- 
cess of animal life in the other. Let it be observed that 
the phraseology is, not that God made the body of man, 
and then infused therein a soul, — but that "man became 
a living soul:" not that he received a soul; he — himself — 
the whole man, thus formed from the dust of the earth, 
was the soul — the person — perfect and complete, but not 
set in motion ; and when the air or breath of life had 
passed through the tubes and the valves of this compli- 
cated, this beautiful, this wonderful machine ! then it was 
that man " became" a living soul or person. 

As already observed, it is not to man alone that the 
expression soul is applied. The previous explanation of 
the word renders this intelligible. But how can those who 
associate with the term ideas of immortality, — how can 
they explain this? In the preceding chapter, every "beast 
of the earth," and every "fowl of the air," are described 
as becoming "living souls" upon precisely the same prin- 
ciple as man ; and this sense of the word will be seen to 



54 MILTON. 

run through Milton's almost literal adaptation of the 1st 
chapter of Genesis : — 

"And God said, 'Let the waters generate, 
Reptile with spawn abundant, living soul : ' 
And God created the great whales, and each 
Soul living — each that crept — which plenteously 
The waters generated by their kinds. 

He formed thee, Adam — thee, Oh man, 

Dust of the ground, and in thy nostrils breathed 

The breath of life— 

And thou becam'st a living soul." — Paradise Lost, Book 7- 

Returning to the Book of Genesis; — In the relation of 
the destruction occasioned by the flood, a similar mode of 
description is applied not to man only, but to "fowls/* 
to "cattle/' to "beasts/' and to "creeping things;" 
for " all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all 
that was in the dry land, died # ." Thus also, when the 
prophet Isaiah would represent the total insignificance of 
man, he exclaims, " Cease ye from man, whose breath 
(life) is in his nostrils : for wherein is he to be account- 
ed off?" So in Job also, where Elihu is addressing 
the Deity, " The spirit of God hath made me ; and the 
breath of the Almighty hath given me life %J f I am there- 
fore perfectly willing to take the often- quoted verse from 
the 2nd of Genesis with the fullest latitude that can be 
given to the words as they stand; and the passage then 
conveys this distinct information, — that God created man 
from the dust of the ground; that he breathed into his 
nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul: 
■ — the whole, and not a part of him, being such. The in- 
terpreter therefore of this passage, who should attempt 
to deduce from it the doctrine of the soul's separate exist- 
ence, its immaterial and inherent immortality, is placed in 
the situation of admitting, first, that the word soul in this 

* Gen. vii. 22„ t Isaiah ii. 22. J Job xxxiii. 4. 



ELIJAH. 55 

passage should have been rendered person ; and conse- 
quently, man's becoming a living soul, in that sense, is 
altogether foreign to the subject of an immortal soul: and, 
secondly, that the reference is to the whole being, and not 
to a separate principle. 

A like instance of the injury done to the Scriptures by 
the retention of phrases which do not convey the original 
meaning, occurs in the 1st Book of Kings, where common 
sense points out that the word "life" should have been 
inserted instead of "soul;" from an inattention to which 
is to be dated whatever confusion or misconception may 
have been attached to the passage : " And it came to pass, 
that the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, fell 
sick ; and his sickness was so sore, that there was no 
breath left in him*." From this relation, it may be ob- 
served, that it is not quite apparent whether or not the 
child was actually dead ; as it appears, that after Elijah's 
prayer he "revived;" though in either case the miracu- 
lous power exercised by Elijah is established; and in 
either case, too, the translation conveys an erroneous idea : 
"And she said unto Elijah, What have I to do with thee, 
O thou man of God ? art thou come unto me to call my sin 
to remembrance, and to slay my son ? And he said unto 
her, Give me thy son. And he took him out of her bosom, 
and laid him upon his own bed. And he stretched him- 
self upon the child three times, and cried unto the Lord, 
and said, I pray thee, let this child's soul (i. e. breath, 
or life, or vigour) come into him again. And the Lord 
heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul (the breath, or 
life, or vigour) of the child came into him again, and he 
revived" An instance further illustrative of this case 
occurs in the 1st of Samuel, where an individual that had 
been engaged in battle, and fatigued, "revives;" and when 
* 1 Kings, xvii. 17, 18, &c. 



56 THE WIDOW OF ZAREPHATH's SON. 

he had partaken of food, "his spirit came into him 
again." David's men " found an Egyptian in the field 
( fatigued ), and brought him to David, and gave him 
bread, and he did eat ; and they made him drink water ; 
and they gave him a piece of a cake of figs, and two clus- 
ters of raisins : And when he had eaten, his spirit came 
again to him : for he had eaten no bread, nor drunk any 
water three days and three nights*." 

So that, whether on the supposition of the widow's son 
having been actually dead, or otherwise, will the Imma- 
terialists contend that an immortal soul had escaped from 
within him, and that, upon the prayer of the prophet, it- 
came to him again ? or will they not be satisfied with the 
view that respiration having been suspended, either par- 
tially or otherwise, — it being miraculously restored to him, 
his lungs were operated upon by the air, and he again 
breathed, and lived. 

The word spirit, as it occurs in the common version, will 
be found, no less than that of soul, to have misled Scrip- 
tural inquirers : much stress having been laid upon the 
following and similar passages, merely because this term 
is to be found therein, without any consideration as to 
the latitude of interpretation, or any view as to the con- 
nexion in which it stands. "In thee, O Lord, do I put 
my trust; for thou art my rock and my fortress. Into 
thine hand I commit my spirit (my life) : Thou hast 
redeemed me, O Lord God of truthf ." If we proceed 
connectedly with the Psalmist's address, it will be found 
clearly to relate to temporal adversity, and that it is not 
of an immortal soul or spirit, but of himself — entirely, 
not in part — that he is speaking: " I will be glad, and 
rejoice in thy mercy, for thou hast considered my trouble; 
thou hast known my soul (thou hast known my mind — 
* 1 Sam. xxx. 11, &c. f Psalm xxxi. 5, &c. 



SOLOMON. 57 

thou hast known me) in adversities :" therefore, because 
of rny knowledge of thy mercy — because thou hast con- 
sidered me in my trouble — because I know " how great is 
thy goodness/' with full reliance upon that mercy and 
upon that goodness, I commit "my spirit' ' (my life) into 
thine hand ; for "I put my trust in the Lord." 

The next passage occurs in the Book of Ecclesiastes, and 
it is one upon which much reliance is placed. "Remember 
thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days 
come not; when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them. 
In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and 
the strong men shall bow themselves, — then shall the dust 
return to the earth as it was ; and the spirit (life — breath) 
shall return imto God, who gave it*." From this passage 
Steffef contends, in reply to Bishop Law, that Solomon 
here clearly recognizes the distinction between soul and 
body, by saying, that the dust shall return to the earth, 
and the spirit to God who gave it. The exhortations of 
" the Preacher," if such were his object, fail not only in 
distinctness of expression, but also in consistency with 
his own teaching. Look at the design of that part of his 
address in which these expressions occur ; it was to im- 
press upon men the importance of remembering their 
Creator in the days of their youth, as such remembrance 
only would lead them to happiness. Where, and when ? 
In a future and immortal state of existence ? No, but here 
on earth; until that period when the dust, or frail ma- 
terials of which they were composed, should return to the 
earth from whence it came, and "their life (or spirit) 
return to God who had given it : " a mode of expression 
naturally arising from the circumstances of the case ; and, 

* Eccles. xii. 1, 7, &c. 

t Two Letters on an Intermediate State, by John Steffe." P. 71 — 75; 
edit. 1758. 



58 THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES. 

among other passages, in accordance with, and illustrative 
of, the language of the Psalmist, who exhorts his hearers 
that they should trust only in God, and not in man — " for 
man's breath goeth forth, and he (that is, the whole, not 
a part of man) returneth to his earth ; in that very day 
his thoughts perish*:" consequently, if his thoughts thus 
perish, then must his soul perish ; for it is the soul, and 
not the body, which is said to be the cause, as well as the 
depository of the thoughts. In what condition, then, is 
the inherent immortality of this soul, which perishes in 
that very day in which the body returns to the dust ? 

The passage in the Book of Numbers, in which Moses 
and Aaron address the Supreme Being as the "God of the 
spirits of all flesh f," has been advanced, with much con- 
fidence, by the Immaterialists : but they have conveniently 
glided over the word all, when in fact it contains the 
very gist of the remark ; placing, as it does, the cause of 
life throughout the ivhole animal creation, upon the same 
foundation ; the Deity being described as the God of the 
spirit, or life, of every living thing, whether man or beast; 
consistently with which, the author of the Book of Eccle- 
siastes, when dilating, in the earlier part of his work, upon 
creation, draws this conclusion ; namely, (C that which be- 
falleth the sons of men, befalleth beasts : as the one dieth, 
^o dieth the other ; yea, they have all one breath (or spi- 
rit); so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast; " 
"all go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all 
turn to dust again J." His very argument, as we have 
seen, is, that at the moment of death there is no longer 
any difference between man whose breath goeth upward, 
and the beast whose breath goeth downward to the earth. 
Yet this writer, and in this very passage too, has been 

* Psalm cxlvi. 4. f Numb. xvi. 22. 

% Ecclcs. iii. 19, &c. 



SOLOMON. 59 

triumphantly quoted in favour of the existence of an im- 
mortal soul in man. 

Again j to quote from the same authority, "The living 
know that they shall die : but the dead know not any thing, 
neither have they any more a reward*." But if Solomon 
had believed, or intended to inculcate the belief, in an im- 
mortal soul, could he thus have argued ? And, if man be 
animated by a spirit ; if that spirit be distinct from, and 
independent of the body ; if further, it be in its own na- 
ture immortal ; and if, on the return of the body to the 
dust from whence it came, the spirit, thus intellectual, in- 
dependent, and immortal, goes literally to God, — then 
Solomon's conclusions are false, and inconsistent with 
his own premises ; for we then have that within us which 
does "know" something when the body is dead, and which 
has a " reward" beyond the grave. Taking, indeed, the 
passages in Ecclesiastes as referring to an immortal soul 
or spirit, they would be full of absurdities and contra- 
dictions : they would teach that man, in point of duration 
of life, has a superiority over the brute, and, at the same 
time, declare that he has no such superiority; they would 
assert that beyond the grave there is no existence, and 
yet inculcate a belief that beyond the grave man shall have 
an eternal existence. But these are absurdities and con- 
tradictions introduced by commentators only; the pas- 
sages themselves being written ages before Jesus had 
"brought life and immortality to light;" and they simply 
refer to, and moralize upon, the mortality of man, in com- 
mon with the beast, and the consequent brevity of human 
life and human enjoyments. 

From the teaching of Solomon, I pass on to the words 
uttered by Stephen immediately preceding his death, in 
which the doctrine of the soul's leaving the body has 
* Eccles. ix. 5. 



60 STEPHEN. 

been supposed to be discoverable. "And they cast him 
out of the city, and stoned him/' he " calling upon God" 
(as in the received version, but the word "God" is not in 
the original), "calling upon, and saying, Lord Jesus, re- 
ceive my spirit*." 

This passage is held to be a decisive one in support of 
immaterialism, at least so far as the authority of Stephen 
can be so considered. But the substitution of life for that 
of spirit, removes the principal source of obscurity 5 the 
only remaining difficulty being that which arises from 
the peculiarity of expression, receive my life, or receive 
me; but even if such can be esteemed an objection, it 
applies with the same force to " receive my spirit:" the 
case, however, would appear to be, that, as we have seen 
in the 30th Psalm, it is a Scriptural mode of expressing 
a confidence in, and a submission to, the will of God, 
even to the laying down of life in attestation thereof. An 
attention not confined to this single verse, but extended to 
the whole of the connecting circumstances, may illustrate 
this view of the passage. Stephen, an appointed teacher 
of the will of God, being "full of faith and power, did 
great wonders and miracles among the people :" and cer- 
tain of the Jews, who were unable "to resist the wisdom 
and spirit by which he spake," suborned men to give false 
testimony against him ; but he continued proclaiming the 
will of God, and denouncing their general conduct, re- 
gardless of personal consequences : " and when they 
heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they 
v gnashed on him with their teeth." At this moment, it 

& should seem, he was favoured with miraculous support, 

probably a visionary appearance of Jesus; — and if so, doubt- 
less for the purpose of administering aid in the severe 
trial and suffering which then awaited him 5 for as he 
* Acts vii. 58, 59- 



JESUS, 



61 



u looked up steadfastly into heaven, he saw Jesus stand- 
ing on the right hand of God" (that is, exalted to power); 
"and he said, Behold I see the heavens opened, and the 
Son of Man standing on the right hand of God." They 
then ran upon and stoned him : but before the moment of 
his death, he is represented as addressing Jesus in the 
words quoted; thus piously resorting to the only effec- 
tual source for support under the severest trial and suffer- 
ing which in this life could have befallen him; and he, 
being encouraged by the Lord and Master of that cause 
for which he was then suffering, " looked up steadfastly," 
and, at the moment of death, exclaimed, "Lord Jesus, re- 
ceive my spirit;" that is, receive my life — receive me. 
The words, to quote an acute and able author*, "receive 
my spirit," argue " nothing but a free and voluntary resig- 
nation of his life to the will of God, and submitting him - 
self to his mercy." 

This view of the case of Stephen may be further illus- 
trated by the words which Jesus himself used immediately 
preceding his own death. "And when Jesus had cried 
with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I com- 
mend my spirit" (my life); and it is added, " having said 
thus, he gave up the ghost f." That is, gave up his life ; 
the relation simply being, that when on the cross, and 
after he had finished praying to his heavenly Father, and 
that too even for his enemies, he resigned his life, in obe- 
dience to the will of God ; in accordance with the pro- 
phecies relating to himself as the Messiah, and full of 
confidence in the favour and protection of his heavenly 
Father. 

* Coward, p. 176. f Luke xxiii. 46. 



62 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE TEACHING OF THE APOSTLES. 

" All those fine-spun notions of the immateriality of the soul, and 
all the artificial deductions from that principle, teach nothing but the 
art of blowing scholastic bubbles, which will certainly go peaceably 
to their rest, without the least detriment, either to sound learning 
or true religion." — Archdeacon Blackburne. 

It is contended that the apostles of Jesus, on some 
occasions, appear to sanction, by their language, a belief 
in the doctrine of the immortality of the soul; and while 
the passages which are deemed to aid this position are not 
numerous, they are yet considered to possess rather a 
formidable character. Such an estimation of them, how- 
ever, is caused principally by the disregard of a rule, which 
is indispensable in Scriptural, or indeed in any other criti- 
cism, — that of viewing literal expressions as such, and 
figurative ones as figurative, and at all times allowing 
plain and definite passages to illustrate those which may 
be, from various causes, less so ; bearing also in mind, as 
far as the Old Testament is concerned, the statement of 
Dr. Kennicott, " that the present English version fre- 
quently expresses not what the translators found in their 
Hebrew text, but what they thought should have been 
there." The applicability of these remarks will also be 
seen upon a reference to the language of the New Testa- 
ment, in which the principles and genius of revelation are 



FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. 03 

often designated as "life" or "spirit;" and those who 
embraced the advantages connected with that system, are 
said to have "passed from death (a state of condemna- 
tion) unto life (a state of pardon ), from the power or in- 
fluence of Satan (of worldly pursuits or principles) unto 
God." — Of the principles which Jesus delivered, it is 
said, " they are spirit, and they are life*." And to those 
who embraced such, there was "now no condemna- 
tion to them which are in Christ Jesus, (in Christianity), 
who walk not after the flesh (the principles of the 
world), but after the spirit (the principles of revelation) f. 
The power of man is also contrasted with that of God; — 
the one, it is shown, may destroy our present existence; 
but that God, besides that, can also "take away" the 
hopes and rewards of the Gospel : thus, the apostles of 
Jesus are exhorted not to fear man, whose greatest effort 
could only destroy their body, or present life; but rather to 
fear Him whose power extended equally over their future 
as well as their present existence; and who, besides annihi- 
lating their body, could likewise withhold that future life 
(or soul) which the Gospel had promised to them, and over 
which man's power and influence could not extend. 

In the free use of figurative language, Jesus exclaims to 
the multitude, " Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye 
eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye 
have no life (no soul) in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and 
drinketh my blood, hath eternal life. Whoso eateth me, 
even he shall live by me." % It is clearly his principles 
which they were exhorted to eat and to drink; and by 
such eating and drinking, believers (and believe)^ alone) 
had then ivithin them the "life," or "spirit," thus de- 
scribed. So also the apostle Paul, when writing to the 
Corinthian church, at a time when it was disordered both 

* John vi. 63. f Rom. viii. 1. } John vi. 53, &c. 



64 TEACHING OF JESUS. 

in discipline and morals, addresses its members as "God's 
husbandry; — ye are God's building, ye are the temple of 
God — the spirit of God dwelleth in you." And the 
same writer still more strongly urges upon them, that 
they should flee from every sin, and that they should bend 
all their energies to the performance of the will of God, 
because their " body was not for fornication, but for the 
Lord, and the Lord for the body: — What, know ye not 
that your bodies are members of Christ ? " And therefore 
purity, as well as perfect devotedness to godly principle, 
both of their "souls," "minds," and "bodies," (i. e. the 
whole of their energies) was indispensable; thus using for 
the purpose of increased impressiveness, a mode of ampli- 
fication frequent in the Scriptures ; as in the instance of 
Jesus when, explaining to the lawyer that to love God was 
the greatest commandment, he adopts this beautiful and 
forcible mode of expression, " Thou shalt love the Lord 
thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy 
mind, and with all thy strength," — that is, with a per- 
fect devotedness of purpose; and not as the Immaterial - 
ists, were they consistent, would contend, that they were, 
firstly, to love God with all their hearts; secondly, with 
all their souls; thirdly, with all their minds; and fourthly, 
with all their strength; which were parts and parcels of 
the same man; and, in addition to such consequences, 

If because of the occurrence of the terms "soul" and 
"body" even in the admitted instance of the description, 
referring to but one and the same person, that we are 
therefore, and as a matter of necessity, to allow that there 
are two natures in man; then, in addition to the cases 
already quoted, and upon the same principles of Scriptural 
criticism, Paul, it may be said, teaches not two but three 
natures in man ; for he acquaints the Thessalonians that 
he prays God their "whole spirit — and soul — and body be 






TEACHING OF JESUS. G5 

preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus 
Christ*." Other most important passages, too, of the 
exhortations of Paul, must, if Immaterialism be admit- 
ted, suffer a like perversion. Thus believers at Corinth 
must have had literally within them the Holy Ghost, 
(which the same parties tell us is a part of the God- 
head,) — "for your bodies are the temples of the Holy 
Ghost {Holy Spirit, referring to the possession of spi- 
ritual gifts, which, in the apostolic age, were conferred 
only upon believers; and, in connexion with such gifts, 
what may be esteemed the "fruits of the spirit," or de- 
votion of mind to Christian principles, was that " spirit/' 
or "life," or "soul," which they possessed,) which is in 
you, which ye have of God, for you are not your own, you 
are bought with a price ; therefore glorify God in your 
body, and in your spirit, which are God's" (in your 
whole mind and character)!. Here the consistent immate - 
rialist, who claims support for his doctrine by virtue of 
the word "soul" occurring in the common translation, 
will not receive aid from the Apostle : Glorify God in your 
body, that gross, inert, sluggish matter, which is incapable 
either of life or thought ; and this body, too, is God's. 
This they would and must contend is inadmissible; and 
even Mr. Abernethy J, aided by the Christian Advocate, 
would find it difficult to reconcile it with that doctrine 
which was taught by " Socrates, Plato, and a host of 
others," and which jointly they, as Christians, "glory" 
in defending. It is, however, strictly Scriptural, in idea 
as well as in expression, and in strict correspondence with 
the language of Jesus (as recorded by Matthew,) to his 
Apostles, when he was about to send them forth to pro- 
claim the Gospel amid persecution and privation, and to 
aid them in enduring which, they were exhorted not to 
* 1 Thess. v. 23. f 1 Cor. vi. J Abernethy's Lectures, 



66 "fear not them that kill the body." 

fear man, but to fear God, who had power equally over 
their present and future life. " Fear not them that kill 
the body, but are not able to kill the soul, (i. e. "the life," 
— the future life; the conferring or the withholding of 
which must exclusively be an act of almighty power,) 
but fear Him which is able to destroy both body and soul 
in hell*" (the grave. f) 

This exhortation, so suited to and required by the parties 
to whom it was addressed, occurs at that period of the 
mission of Jesus when he had selected his twelve disciples; 
and, having given them power to perform miracles, they 
were sent forth as "sheep in the midst of wolves;" and 
they were to beware of men, for such would deliver them 
up unto the councils, and " they will scourge you in their 
synagogues ; ye shall be brought before governors and 
kings for my sake. But when they deliver you up, take no 
thought how or what ye shall speak ; for it shall be given 
to you in the same hour what ye shall speak : for it is not 
ye that speak, but the spirit of the Father which speaketh 
in you : but when they persecute you in one city, flee ye 
into another. Fear them not; for he that loseth his life for 
my sake shall find it %." That is, he that loseth his pre- 
sent life in propagating my principles, shall find another 
life in the future which man cannot destroy : therefore 
fear not them whose utmost power is thus defined and 

* Matt. x. 28. 

f Hell, "In Hebrew Scheol; this word most commonly signifies the 
grave." — Cruden's Concordance, article Hell. "The word Hell is of 
Saxon extraction, and signifies a covered place ; from the same original 
we still retain, in our language, the word heal, or hele, which signifies 
to cover over." — Rees'"s Cyclopedia, article Hell. " It is certain that 
the Greek word we render Hell does properly signify no more than a 
place that is withdrawn from our view." — Goadby's Bible, note on 
Luke xvi. 23. 

} See Matt. x. Luke xii. 



CONFESS JESUS BEFORE MEN. 67 

circumscribed. And partly in correspondence with these 
views those who received the principles of Jesus, and 
the hopes consequent upon them, are considered as having 
that "within" them which is spirit, or soul, or life; for 
"the words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they 
are life;" therefore fear Him only, whose power can at 
once annihilate your present life, and also that spiritual 
life which consists in and is built upon the principles and 
hopes of the Gospel. The whole scope and object of the 
address of Jesus being to direct them to proclaim the 
approach of the Messiah's kingdom, — to apprise them of 
the persecutions, and perhaps even death, which would 
await them in their ministry ; and, at the same time, to 
give them the strongest encouragement to persevere, 
assuring them that the Divine Being was their guide and 
protectory that their labours and privations were taken 
cognizance of by him; that everything in creation was 
under his superintendance, and that even a sparrow did 
not fall to the ground without his knowledge, they there- 
fore were to rely upon God ; to confess Jesus before 
men, in order that he might confess them before his Fa- 
ther which was in heaven ; consequently they were to 
bear with every privation and suffering, not fearing man, 
whose utmost malignity and wickedness, or ignorance, 
could only inflict present evil, but to fear Him who pos- 
sessed a power which no human means could reach or 
affect. 

That these are faithful representations of the character 
and object of this memorable address of Jesus is further 
supported by the corresponding passage in Luke, in which 
all the points important to the case are related, and yet 
neither the word soul, nor the destruction of that soul 
" in hell," there occur. " Be not afraid of them that 
kill the body, and after that have no more that they can 

f2 



G8 HELL. THE GRAVE. 

do: but I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear; fear Him, 
which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell 
(the grave); yea, I say unto you, fear Him*." And let 
it be observed, that this was an address to the Apostles 
only ; hence its necessity and its appropriateness : and I 
may remark, in passing, that the very terms of this address 
strictly accord with the materiality — the mortality of the 
frame of man ; but, according to the Immaterialists, the 
soul does not u descend to the grave," so that I may well 
leave them to explain how that can be killed which is 
immortal; besides which, as the admitted object of the 
address was to encourage the Apostles to bear up against 
that which awaited them by every evil that man had the 
power to inflict, it could supply no motive to them to be 
warned to fear him who could destroy their soul in the 
grave ; for, if the doctrine of Immaterialism be Scriptural, 
the soul never is deposited in the grave — it cannot be de- 
stroyed there — being in its own nature indestructible $ and 
is it not understood, even of the power of the Deity, that 
he could as easily destroy himself, as that which is inhe- 
rently immortal ? So that whatever obscurity may have 
appertained to this passage, it is chiefly chargeable upon 
the translators for the use thus made of the term soul; 
and that too without regard to their own consistency: for, 
in a case precisely similar, they render into English a 
corresponding address of Jesus, "Take no thought for 
your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor 
for your body, what ye shall put on : is not your life more 
than meat, and your body than raiment f? '.' With a correct 
understanding of the terms life or soul or spirit, there is 
but little difficulty in the preceding cases, nor in the ex- 
pressions of Jesus : "If any man will come after me, let 
him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me : 
* Luke xii. 4. f Matt. vi. 25. 



" LOSE HIS OWN SOUL." 69 

for whosoever will save his life shall lose it ; and who- 
soever will lose his life for my sake shall find it ; for 
what is a man profited if he gain the whole world, and lose 
his own soul ? (lose that future life before promised to 
those, who could, if necessary, sacrifice even their present 
life, for (in the words of Mark,) "rnysake and the Gospel's") 
or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul*?" 
But had Jesus in this address had any view towards the 
doctrine of an immortal soul, and were we compelled to 
follow the common translation, how singularly out of place 
would have been the reasoning! Thus from the conclusion 
of the observations of Jesus as recorded by Mark, the 
"soul" spoken of is not an immaterial principle, but the 
gift of a future life. — " For whosoever shall lose his life 
for my sake and the Gospel's, the same shall save it 5 and 
whosoever shall be ashamed of me and my words, of him 
shall the Son of man be ashamed when he cometh in the 
glory of the Father with all his holy angelsf" (messengers); 
the whole being in connexion with the address to the 
Apostles, at the time when Jesus began to show them that 
he must "go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of 
the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and 
be raised again the third day X ;" when Peter rebuked him, 
saying, " Be it far from thee, Lord." Jesus proceeds to 
condemn the fears of the Apostles, showing them that if 
they would "come after" him, to " deny" themselves, to 
" take up their cross and follow him," and even be pre- 
pared to lay down their lives, if they desired and " longed" 
for future existence. Well, indeed, might the Messiah 
exclaim, What is a man profited if he gain the whole world 
and lose the assurance of such a futurity ! 

There are some minor passages in the writings of the 
Apostles in which the salvation of souls is spoken of, but in a 

* Matt. xvi. 24—26. f Mark viii. 35, 38. t Matt. xvi. 21. 



70 



SALVATION OF SOULS. 



different sense to that of those which have been referred to, 
though equally requiring explanation. James, in address- 
ing the " twelve tribes scattered abroad,'' exhorts them to 
be perfect and entire, wanting nothing 5 and if any wanted 
knowledge, they were to " ask of God, who giveth to all 
men liberally;" but to obtain that for which they asked, 
it was essential that they should lay apart " all filthiness 
and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness 
the engrafted word which is able to save (deliver) your 
souls" (deliver your persons — deliver you # ). The Apostle 
is not addressing the twelve tribes upon future salvation, 
but in regard to deliverance from that state of death or 
condemnation under which the Jews then laboured, and 
from which they could only be emancipated by faith (be- 
lief) in the Gospel. In a corresponding sense Peter calls 
to the minds of believers that they had received, not were 
to receive, the "salvation of their souls," a deliverance 
not communicated to nor possessed by, but "searched 
diligently" after by the prophets. "Yet believing, ye 
rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory : receiving 
the end of your faith (belief), even the salvation (de- 
liverance) of your souls (of your persons — of your- 
selves); of which salvation the prophets have inquired 
and searched diligently f." Believers alone were those 
who had received this salvation, and that not from natural, 
but from moral death, or a state of condemnation ; then it 
is said, those who in times past " had walked according 
to the course of this world ; and you hath he quickened, 
who were dead in trespasses and sins J;" and it should 
seem from the disorders in the Corinthian church, that 
at least for a season, they had failed to appreciate their 
deliverance, for it was commonly reported that " among 
them there was such iniquity as was not even named 

• James i. 21. t 1 Peter i. 8, 9, 10. X Ephes. ii. 1. 



DELIVERING UNTO SATAN. ?l 

among the Gentiles;" and Paul, though " absent in body- 
but present in spirit (in mind)/' had judged of him that 
had so done this deed, " deliver such a one unto Satan (the 
adversary, the world) for the destruction of the flesh, that 
the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus*." 
From this passage it has been contended, that "there is a 
spirit, distinct from the material man, which will be saved:" 
in this case, however, as in every other of real or assumed 
difficulty, the Scriptures themselves supply the best expla- 
nation, and from them it will appear that the incestuous 
individual in question was to be excluded from communion 
with the Corinthian church. 

This exclusion it was which constituted the delivering 
unto Satan — (or the world) — that the destruction of the 
flesh was not, as the immaterialist contends, the " de- 
struction of the material man," but that of the evil princi- 
ples and practices of the flesh, as contrasted with those of 
the Gospel. This view appears to be further illustrated in 
the writings of the same Apostle to the church at Rome, 
f 6 There is therefore now no condemnation to them which 
are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after 
the spirit : for they that are after the flesh do mind the 
things of the flesh, but they that are after the spirit, the 
things of the spirit; but ye are not in the fleshy but in the 
spirit, if so be that the spirit of God dwell in you ; now 
if any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of hisf ." 
Upon these and similar passages, no ordinary share of in- 
genuity has been exerted to torture them into an avowal 
of Immaterialism : it is however submitted, that they bear 
no reference thereto, and that their distinct scope and ten- 
dency clearly discountenance that doctrine. 

We pass on to those passages which embrace Paul's 
wishes to leave this " earthly tabernacle;" to that of the 
* 1 Cor. v. 5. f Romans viii. 1. &c. 



72 MOSES AND ELIJAH IN THE HOLY MOUNT. 

transfiguration; and the assertion of Jesus, that " God is 
not the God of the dead, but of the living." In regard to 
the first, it is apparent that such were Paul's desires; and 
the following seems to be the evidence upon which such, 
desires were probably and rationally founded ; dwelling, 
as his mind must have done, on the Divine conduct to- 
wards those of his predecessors, who had been faithful 
and devoted servants of God, as in the cases of Enoch, 
Elijah, and Jesus, who were favoured with an immediate 
futurity, and the cause of their being so honoured hav- 
ing clearly resulted from their faithful performance of the 
Divine will ; which would thus act as a reward to them 
on the one hand, and a stimulus to others who were 
divinely commissioned to follow in their footsteps ; so 
that in the instances of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and 
Moses, we have only the evidence of probability that 
they were blessed with an immediate futurity. Of Mo- 
ses, indeed, the fact of his appearing with Elijah to Jesus 
in the "holy mount," is strongly calculated to aid the 
opinion that he was numbered among those who were 
"clothed upon" with immortality. Paul, therefore, know- 
ing of the existence of Enoch, Elijah, and Jesus, and if 
the other prophets of God were also then in exist- 
ence, doubtless he with equal certainty was acquainted 
therewith; added to which, as all the Apostles had to 
perform a very extraordinary and self-devoted part in the 
establishment of the Gospel, and they had received upon 
several occasions Divine communications, it would seem 
to correspond with the conduct of God towards their pre- 
decessors, and the principles of his general government, 
that they also, if they continued equally faithful unto the 
end, should be made partakers of the like privilege. 

With these ideas, I recur to the statement of the suffer- 
ings which Paul and his fellow Apostles endured, as re- 



THE PRAYER OF JESUS. /3 

corded in the Corinthians ; " We are troubled on every 
side, yet not distressed; perplexed, but not in despair; 
persecuted, but not forsaken ; cast down, but not destroyed; 
always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord 
Jesus : we are confident and willing to be absent from the 
body and present with the Lord*." And, in the Philip- 
pians, the same Apostle's earnest expectation and hope is 
that Christ should be magnified in his body, " for to me 
to live is Christ, and to die is gain; for I am in a strait 
betwixt two, having a desire to depart and to be with 
Christ, which is far better f." Such being the passages 
which are construed as before stated, it is submitted that the 
expression of a wish "to be present with the Lord," or a 
" desire to depart to be with Christ," so far from accord- 
ing with Immaterialism, really discountenances that doc- 
trine ; for if he had been animated by an immortal soul, 
then all such objects were secured to him, and that not by 
any especial favour of God, but by having that within 
which was naturally immortal. 

Besides these considerations, it should seem probable 
from two memorable facts in the life of Jesus, as recorded 
by John, (the first of which is an address to the Apostles, 
after what is termed the last supper; and the other that 
of his prayer to God for them,) which tend strongly to 
support the view of an exception being made in their in- 
stances, and of their being privileged with an immediate 
resurrection. " Let not your hearts be troubled : ye believe 
in God ; believe also in me : in my Father's house are 
many mansions ; if it were not so, I would have told you : 
I go to prepare a place for you%" "As thou hast sent 
me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the 
world ; and the glory which thou gavest me, I have given 
them : Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given 

* 2 Cor. iv. and v. f Phil. i. X John xiv. 



74 PAUL. 

me, be with me where lam, that they may behold my 
glory which thou hast given me*." 

Combining, therefore, these several views, the most 
rational conclusion would seem to be, that the Apostles, 
together with the prophets, were thus exclusively distin- 
guished; and although Paul did not, at the time when this 
address and prayer were delivered, form a part of their 
body, yet he was when converted, and also afterwards, in 
communication with Jesus, and, doubtless, he would par- 
ticipate with the eleven in their high and distinguished 
rewards. Thus the desires of the Apostle, while they give 
no countenance to Immaterialism, appear to rest upon a 
solid basis ; and they harmonize, too, with the address and 
the prayer of Jesus, either of which is irreconcileable 
with the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, as, in 
addition to its incompatibility with the whole scope of 
these passages, the belief in it by Paul would constitute 
his anxiety to depart, a mere impatience of life ; for if he 
had within him an immortal soul, then, as an inevitable 
consequence, he was certain of an immediate re-existence, 
and that too by a principle possessed merely in common 
with every other human being, and, consequently, not 
capable of operating upon his mind as a privilege of a 
peculiar and generally exclusive character ; as one which 
could administer support under sufferings, and impel him 
on to make every sacrifice and exertion. 

The conversion of Paul, as well as his anxiety to be 
with Christ, is, with palpable inconsistency, held to sup- 
port Immaterialism ; to meet which, I refer to the facts 
as related by himself, and which, it will be seen, are con- 
fined to a statement of the exalted nature of the com- 
munication with which he had been favoured. " I knew 
a man in Christ about fourteen years ago, whether in 

* John xvii. 24. 



THE THIRD HEAVEN. 7$ 

the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I 
cannot tell : God knoweth ; such a one was caught up 
into the third heaven/' This relation is stated by the 
Apostle at its commencement, to be " a vision of the 
Lord :" and these questions may be put to those who 
labour to support their hypothesis, even from a vision; 
If we are to take this passage literally, that Paul, at his 
conversion, was really in, what they understand by the 
third heaven? Can "gross," "sluggish," "medullary 
matter," be an inhabitant of heaven ? for, to maintain 
consistency of explanation, it might have been so ; as 
Paul states, that he does not know whether he was not 
there "in the body:" on the other hand, if he literally 
was in the third heaven "out of the body," where was the 
body during the period ? and, as it is quite certain it was 
not dead, what becomes of the doctrine which maintains 
that it is the soul alone which gives life to the body, and 
that when the soul is removed from the body the latter 
becomes a mass of dead matter? 

A passage, in its own nature plain and definite, and 
which requires no common powers of mystification to 
pervert, occurs in most of the writings of the Scriptural 
defenders of Immaterialism ; among others, Dr. Jortin 
asserts, that the words of Jesus*, "God is not the God of 
the dead, but of the living," were words spoken by our 
Saviour, with a view to establish the doctrine of the soul's 
immortality +.*' A reference, however, to the connexion 
which gave rise to the remarks in question, will probably 
be the best mode of ascertaining their correct meaning. 
It appears that the Sadducees, who denied that there would 
be any resurrection, put a question to Jesus in support of 
their opinions, to which he replied, "Ye do err, not know- 
ing the Scriptures, nor the power of God ; for, as touching 

* Matt. xxii. 32. f 19th Sermon, vol. ii. 



76 GOD " NOT THE GOD OF THE DEAD." 

the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which 
was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of 
Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? 
God is not the God of the dead, but of the living *." 
Here both the question and the reply is distinctly, and to 
the exclusion of every other subject, "the resurrection of 
the dead;" and the parties who put the question, not only 
denied a resurrection, but also said, "that there is neither 
Angels or Spirits." It consequently must be apparent, 
that had Jesus been a teacher of the doctrines of angels 
and spirits, and more especially if such doctrines bore that 
relation to the resurrection which Immaterialists aver, 
then the Sadducees would have naturally availed themselves 
of so favourable an opportunity to attempt to puzzle Jesus ; 
and it is inconceivable, in that case, that he should not have 
advanced such, as affording evidence of the doctrine of a 
future life, and with some such reply as this, Ye do err> 
not knowing the Scriptures ; for have ye not read that you 
have an immortal soul within you which cannot die ? 

Passing on to the point in regard to the Deity being — 
not the God of the dead, but of the living, and that " the 
dead are raised, even Moses showed at the bush when he 
called the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob f." 
First, the mortality of the whole man, consequently his 
materiality, is here distinctly avowed ; and, if we have an 
immortal soul, then we can know nothing of a resurrection, 
which is a re-living — a re-existence; and, as the soul can- 
not die, it as a consequence, cannot "rise from the dead." 
/Secondly, that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, either have 
risen or will rise. That the former opinion is probable 
will be seen in the remarks connected with the Apostle 
Paul ; but if the latter be esteemed the more correct one, 
it will equally support in this passage, that which is here 

* Matt. xxii. 29, &c f Luke xx. 38. 



THE TRANSFIGURATION, // 

contended for, and scripturally correspond with the ex- 
pression, that "God is not the God of the dead, but of the 
living," t. e. of those who will hereafter be raised to life, 
and who are now spoken of as living in the view and de 
cree of God*; and thus according with a passage in the 
Romans, that Abraham is the father of all believers, "As 
it is written, (I have made thee a father of many nations,) 
even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things 
ivhich he not (i. e. have not yet, but are in the determined 
council and foreknowledge of God designed to take place,) 
as though they weref;" (who regards the future Resur- 
rection as if it were present J.) Thus, upon either view 
of the case, whether Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob be living 
or are to live, Dr. Jortin's conclusion is unsupported ; and 
the words of Jesus, so far from proving, tend to disprove 
Immaterialism. 

Under the same division of this controversy is ranked 
what is denominated the Transfiguration, and from thence 
is assumed the very point in debate ; for "the Evangelist 
informs us, 'Moses and Elias came and conversed with 
Jesus, and were seen and heard by those disciples who 
were present : as to Elias, he died not, but like Enoch be- 
fore him was taken up into heaven ; but of Moses it is 
written that he died and was buried/ This account, there- 
fore, is a fair intimation that good men continue to live and 
to act after they are released from this mortal body§." 
But to have made the Doctor's case a good one, it should 
have been related, that it was the immortal souls of Moses 
and Elias which conversed with Jesus. The qualities of 
which souls, be it remembered, are defined to be by na- 
ture aerial and immaterial, consequently not tangible to 

* See notes in Unitarian Version on this passage. 

f Rom. iv. 17- 

§ Dr. Jortin's Sermons, p. 385. 



78 THE TRANSFIGURATION. 

the touch, nor visible to the sight ; yet, in despite of such 
inherent properties, the Doctor admits that they " were 
seen and heard by those disciples who were present." 
With regard to the Transfiguration, there are two views 
taken of it : one, that it was a vision ; the other, that 
Moses and Elias did personally appear to Jesus on the 
holy mount; and whichever view of the transaction be 
the correct one, they alike fail in assisting the Immaterial 
doctrine. For if it was a personal appearance, it proves 
no more than this : That the distinguished messengers of 
God have been exclusively honoured with a continuation 
of existence; and it establishes the point, that if there 
are spirits, their properties are inconsistent with what is 
ascribed to them by the Immaterialist. If, on the other 
hand, it was a visionary appearance, the Immaterialist 
must concede, that a communication by vision has no 
kind of connexion with the existence of spirits, the re- 
lation being, that u Jesus took up with him Peter, and 
John, and James, into a mountain to pray; and behold 
there talked with him two men, which were Moses and 
Elias, who appeared in glory, and spake of his decease 
which he should accomplish at Jerusalem*." And doubt- 
less such a communication was designed for, and must 
have succeeded in, administering to the mind of Jesus, un- 
der all his subsequent exertions and sufferings, the most ef- 
fectual support. The effect, too, upon the Apostles would 
seem to have been very important ; " For (they declare) 
we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we 
made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, but were eye-witnesses of his majesty ; and 
the voice which came from heaven we heard when we 
were with him in the holy mount f." 

In regard to the cases of Enoch, Elijah, and Jesus, 

* Luke ix. 28. f 2 Pet. i. 16, &c. 



ENOCH. ELIJAH. JESUS. 79 

they require but a very brief statement, — indeed, a literal 
quotation of the historical records will destroy the ar- 
guments of the Immaterialist. Of Enoch, it appears, 
that his days "were three hundred, sixty, and five years, 
and Enoch walked with God, (i. e. obeyed the will of 
God, walked in obedience to and had full confidence in 
God, "led a godly life/' "was well pleasing to God*,") 
he was not, for God took him (not his soul) away-f-." Of 
Elijah it is related, that when walking with Elisha, "he 
(not his immortal soul) went up into heaven'' (the air J); 
and of Jesus, that when he had ended instructing his 
Apostles, and he " had spoken these things, — while they 
beheld, he (not an immaterial spirit) was taken up, and 
a cloud received him (not his soul) out of their sight §." 
Now, if futurity can only be entered upon by immaterial 
spirits, "when released from this mortal body/' how, or 
by what means, can it be accounted for, that the Bible 
historians should have omitted to state a fact so impor- 
tant ; and that, also, in three most memorable cases, 
when the relation was inseparable from a faithful narra- 
tion? But, in addition to this circumstance, when Jortin's 
position is carried to its conclusion, it will be seen, that, 
if we are animated by an immortal spirit, he himself is 
the opponent of his own doctrine, by which, if it be true, 
not merely Enoch and Elijah, and " other good men con- 
tinue to live and to act," but all men, without distinction 
or discrimination, alike and immediately continue to live 
and to act when " released from this mortal body," and 
that, too, without regard to the declaration of Jesus, that 
"a time will come (not now is, or as yet ever has been,) 
when all that are in their graves shall hear the voice of 

* See Geddes's Translation and notes. f Gen. v. 23, 24. 

I 2 Kings ii. 11, &c. § Acts i. 9. 



bU THE MISSTON OF JESUS. 

the son of God, and come forth ; they that have done 
good to the resurrection of life, and they that have done 
evil to the resurrection of damnation*" (condemnation). 

The remaining points are those which relate to the belief 
(at least on the part of some,) of the Apostles in the exist- 
ence of spirits, and the fact that Jesus did not expressly 
and specifically correct such impressions. Rightly to ap- 
preciate this argument, it is necessary that we should re- 
cur to the situation of Jesus, and to the distinct objects for 
the promulgation of which he was commissioned ; such 
being to announce the divine promises towards man — the 
removal of the ceremonial parts of the Mosaic institutions 
— the proclaiming forgiveness of sins upon repentance — 
and the preparing men for the enlargement of that Church 
which should know neither Jew nor Greek, and which 
should cause all nations of the earth to be blessed ; and, 
finally, "to bring life and immortality to light:" — these 
being the mighty and all-important facts which the Mes- 
siah was commissioned to proclaim, we are not to look 
to his teachings as to an Encyclopedia, neither are we to 
expect from them that to which they lay no claim. A re- 
velation from God, of the comprehensive kind referred to, 
would, indeed, have been inconsistent with the develop- 
ment of intellect and individual exertion, to excite which 
ever appears characteristic of the divine government ; be- 
sides which, the communications enumerated above could 
not fail to establish in the minds of believers conceptions 
so definite, and principles so correct, that minor points of 
ignorance would necessarily vanish as the mind gained 
strength in the express doctrines of revelation. In ad- 
dition to these views, Jesus, in the use of popular lan- 
guage, had really no choice ; and it will be seen that, 

* John v. 28, 29. 



DEMONIACAL POSSESSION. 81 

upon the admission that his object was to be understood 
by those whom he addressed, the present case is of a 
similar description to that of his curing maniacal and 
epileptical diseases, which were supposed by the Jewish 
people to be caused by the afflicted parties having within 
them evil spirits. When such persons were restored to 
health, it was said that he "cast out" the possessing de- 
mon; and, upon some occasions, his own words are, ee I 
command thee to come out:" yet even by the enlightened 
immaterialist these words, which accord so expressly with 
the erroneous doctrines of demoniacal possession, are most 
correctly viewed, — not as teaching such opinions, but 
merely as being the unavoidable use of the language of his 
age and country. Thus, even in our own times, the use of 
words originating in popular ignorance might be supposed 
easy to be dispensed with ; yet even now our astronomers 
speak and write of the sun's rising and setting, and their 
meaning is not misunderstood by any, although their words 
(in the necessity of using which they have but little choice,) 
express the exact reverse of that which they believe and 
teach. 

A similar use of popular forms of expression occurs 
when Jesus went to his disciples after his resurrection. 
They, in common with most of the Jews as well as hea- 
thens, believed in angels and spirits ; and "they were terri- 
fied and affrighted, and supposed they had seen a spirit." 

To have entered into a discussion with them for the 
purpose of correcting their superstitious opinions in this 
particular, would have been an abortive and unprofitable 
effort ; besides which, it would have diverted their minds 
from his chief object, such being to place beyond doubt 
the fact that he was the same Jesus who had been cru- 
cified : and this is at once effected, not by discussions 
upon the absurdities connected with spirits, and demons, 

G 



82 SPIRITS. 

and ghosts, but by meeting them on their own ground, 
and making a reply which to them was unanswerable : 
"And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled ? and why 
do thoughts arise in your hearts ? Behold my hands and 
my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see ; for a spi- 
rit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. And when 
he had thus spoken, he showed them his hands and his 
feet*." By this course his object was instantly gained; for 
he " opened their understanding, that they might under- 
stand the Scriptures; that thus it behoved Christ to suffer, 
and to rise from the dead the third day : and that repent- 
ance and remission of sins should be preached unto all 
nations, beginning at Jerusalem : and ye are witnesses 
of these things." So that, in calmly viewing the use by 
Jesus of popular phraseology, it appears that he had no 
choice; he must either have done so, or else have been 
silent : besides which, the difference will readily be admit- 
ted, between referring to an opinion and adopting it; for, 
in truth, if Jesus on this occasion taught and sanctioned 
the heathen doctrine of spirits, — then, as a consequence, 
when he declared "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon," 
he in an equal degree asserted the existence of the god 
Mammon, and consequently was a believer in the heathen 
mythology. And it may be submitted to the advocates of 
Immaterialism — how far their cause is aided, or by what 
authority they can avail themselves of that class of popular 
superstition which confers bodily forms upon spiritual ap- 
pearances ? for, according to their theory, the soul is imma- 
terial and aerial, neither tangible to the touch, nor visible 
to the sight : and, consequently, without some such expla- 
nation of the remark of Jesus, their cause will not be sup- 
ported, nor can they be allowed to avail themselves of the 
prejudices of those who thought — u they saw a spirit." 
* Luke xxiv. 38, &c. 



83 



CHAPTER V. 

INTERMEDIATE STATE. 

" As to the consequences of the present question, it appears, that, 
on the one side," (that of materialism,) "there is nothing more than a 
temporary cessation of thought, which can hurt nobody, except the 
self-interested papist, whose gainful system of purgatory is by this 
means overturned, or the self- sufficient deist, whose claim to an in- 
herent principle of immortality is shown to be vain and groundless: 
but on the other side," (that of immaterialism,) "there is a manifest 
derogation from, if not a total subversion of, that positive covenant, 
which professes solely to entitle us to everlasting life; all proper and 
consistent notions of death, a resurrection, and future judgement, are 
confounded ; in fine, all the great sanctions of the Gospel rendered un- 
intelligible or useless." — Bishop Law's Theory of Religion, Postscript, 
437, 438, &c. 

An intermediate state of conscious and active exist- 
ence, which is said to be entered upon immediately at our 
death, and to continue until the resurrection, will form the 
subject of this chapter. And, before entering upon the ar- 
guments by which this doctrine is advocated, it ma}^ be well 
to premise, that the Scriptures are most clear and distinct 
in what they communicate relative to man's future con- 
dition ; uniformly setting forth that that state is to com- 
mence at the resurrection, — that we shall not live again till 
the resurrection, — that mankind will not be judged before 
the resurrection, — that the faith, labours, and suffering of 
believers are unprofitable and perish if there be no resur- 
rection*. Such being, unequivocally, the doctrines of the 
Scriptures, the supporters of immaterialism have natu- 
rally felt them to be incompatible with their hypothesis : 
for if an immortal soul be an essential part of a living 
* See Law's Theory, Appendix. 

g2 



84 PURGATORY. 

man, then, of necessity, future existence does commence 
before the resurrection ; and the faith, labours, and suf- 
ferings of believers do not, nor can they, perish, even if 
a resurrection never takes place. Thus situated in regard 
to doctrines so opposed as those of Immaterialism and a 
Resurrection from the dead, their supporters have had 
recourse to heathen sources ; and from thence, and not 
from the Scriptures, have deduced an hypothesis, which is 
thus described: "In the interval between death and the 
resurrection, there is an Intermediate State, in which the 
departed souls of the good are supposed to have an im- 
perfect reward, and the souls of the wicked an imperfect 
punishment." And whilst the Scriptures may be looked to 
in vain for a description of this " interval between death 
and the resurrection," its origin may readily be discovered 
among the comparatively consistent immaterialists of the 
heathen nations, who believed souls to be an emanation of 
that intellectual fire by which the universe is animated ; 
and that when they are released from the body, they re- 
turn to God; but that, previously to such return, they 
have "an interval," by being placed in an "intermediate 
state" for the purpose of being purified from the conse- 
quences of their late pollution. So early as the second cen- 
tury, Origen and other "Fathers" incorporated this system 
with the Christian doctrine of future existence, and from 
thence the Catholic " Purgatory " was immediately de- 
rived; so that this essential branch of the doctrine of 
immaterialism became one of great influence, and of profit 
too, to the Romish Church, into which it was introduced 
by Gregory in the sixth century, was honoured with an 
infallible affirmation in the year 1140, and so continued 
till the Reformation, when most of the Reformers being 
conterit with a small degree of refinement upon Catholicism, 
merely prohibited prayers for the souls of the deceased. 



LUTHER. CALVIN. 85 

To such general belief in the truth of imrnaterialism 
Luther, in the earlier part of his life, was a singular ex- 
ception. In his Defence, (published 1520,) which was 
condemned by Leo X ., he states, " I permit the Pope to 
make articles of faith for himself and his faithful, such as 
that he is emperor of the world, king of heaven, and God 
upon earth — that the soul is immortal", with all those 
monstrous opinions to be found in the Roman dunghill of 
decretals*." On the latter point, however, Luther seems 
to have stood nearly alone : neither does it appear that he 
evinced much perseverance in its defence, opposed as it 
was to the decrees of the Church of Rome on the one hand, 
and to the prejudices of his brother Reformers on the other; 
and, indeed, the latter announced that " Faith requires 
that we should think that the dead are not nothing, but 
that they truly live before God ; the pious happily in 
Christ, the wicked in an horrible expectation of the reve- 
lation of divine judgement." But it will be found that 
anything rather than uniformity of opinion, as to the con- 
dition of souls in this " intermediate state," has prevailed 
and does prevail among its supporters; and that while the 
decree above quoted apportions to the wicked " an hor- 
rible expectation of the revelation of divine judgement," 
— Calvin is content to deal only with the souls of "the faith- 
ful;" for, "it is nothing to me," he observes, "what be- 
comes of their souls," (the wicked,) " I will only be re- 
sponsible for the faithful." The more modern defenders of 
the doctrine abound also with contentions with each other; 
first, as to the place and condition of all souls, whether 
virtuous or vicious; secondly, as to the union of the same 
soul with the same body at the resurrection ; and thirdly, 
as to those passages of Scripture which expressly reserve 
all hopes of future life, of punishment, and of reward, 
* Luther's Defence. 



SO SLEEP OF THE SOUL. 

until the resurrection. Out of these difficulties and con- 
tentions have arisen a sect of semi-immaterialists, who, 
while they succeed in proving that neither reward nor 
punishment can take place until the resurrection, yet they 
most inconsistently contend that man is animated by a 
soul ; and, for the purpose of reconciling all parties and 
every inconsistency, they assert that this quality of man, 
immortal and self-existent as it is, becomes, at the disso- 
lution of the body, partially non-existent, being until the 
resurrection in a state of sleep or insensibility. To this 
absurd position Bishop Warburton, who it will be seen 
was at least consistent in his immaterialism, makes a reply 
possessed of much force : "Their sleep of the soul is mere 
cant ; and this brings me to consider the sense and con- 
sistency of so ridiculous a notion. Now sleep is a modi- 
fication of existence, not of non-existence; so that the 
sleep of a substance hath a meaning — the sleep of a qua- 
lity is nonsense*." 

If there is such a state, it is of the first importance that 
the fact should have been distinctly communicated ; and 
if the doctrine is scriptural, we are entitled to ask for the 
law and the testimony, and in fairness to require that the 
passages shall be as clear and as decided, because equally 
required to be so, (and from being an essential part of the 
doctrine of futurity, they, if true, would and must be so,) 
as the declarations of Jesus and his Apostles relative to a 
resurrection from the dead and of a future judgement. But 
as some proof of the entire want of such evidence, there is 
upon record a candid and certainly a very extraordinary 
confession of one of the ablest defenders of this doctrine, 
in which, so conscious is the writer of the want of scrip- 
tural authority, that he is compelled to admit that "the in- 
termediate state between death and the resurrection is a 
* Bishop Warburton's Strictures on the Sleep of the Soul. 



RICH MAN AND LAZARUS. 87 

subject upon which the Scriptures have not said so much 
as one could wish*" From such an admission then, and 
from such an authority too in this controversy, it will be 
allowed that, in fairness of argument, the discussion might, 
as it regards the evidence, nearly terminate; but that there 
are other defenders of the same doctrine, who, while their 
arguments prove that they are not in a better condition 
than the reverend Doctor, yet seem to have either more faith 
or less ingenuousness than he possessed; and who contend 
that there are " many expressions of Scripture, in the na- 
tural and obvious sense, which imply that an intermediate 
and separate state is actually to succeed death f." 

On account of its assumed importance, as well as to give 
effect to the subjoined remarks, I shall quote the whole of 
the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, as recorded by 
Luke, who thus represents Jesus as addressing his disci- 
ples as well as the Scribes and Pharisees : — " There was 
a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine 
lineiij and fared sumptuously every day : and there was a 
certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, 
full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which 
fell from the rich man's table. The beggar died, and was 
carried by angels into Abraham's bosom. The rich man 
also died, and was buried. And in hell he lifted up his 
eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and 
Lazarus in his bosom. And he said, Father Abraham, 
have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip 
the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I 
am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, 
remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good 
things, and likewise Lazarus evil things : but now he is 
comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, 

* Dr. Jortin's Sermons. 

■f Dr. Campbell's Preliminary Dissertations, Part II. 



OO RICH MAN AND LAZARUS. 

between us and you there is a great gulf fixed : so that 
they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither 
can they pass to us that would come from thence*.'' This 
parable can admit of but one of two modes of interpreta- 
tion, — either it must be viewed as figurative, or literal : if 
the former, then the connexion in which it occurs, the cir- 
cumstances which gave rise to it, the definite object for 
which it was delivered, and the admitted character of al- 
legorical instruction, — are essential to its being correctly 
understood : if the latter, then every circumstance enu- 
merated must be taken literally as they are related ; and, 
indeed, so necessary do some of the defenders of an inter- 
mediate state esteem a literal interpretation, that, in an 
answer to Priestley published in 177&, it is stated that 
"we should never presume to stray from the express, ob- 
vious, literal meaning." 

Bound then by such conditions, we look at this parable, 
and bear in our minds that the soul of man is described 
by its advocates to be spiritual — not visible to the sight ; 
that it takes its flight immediately upon the dissolution of 
the body, to inhabit a state which is thus described : that 
" whilst the good enter into a state of peace and comfort, 
the wicked are properly condemned to an insensible con- 
dition till the last day calls them forth f/' IAterally 9 
then, it appears, that Lazarus, — not an immortal soul, but 
that the "beggar" Lazarus, "full of sores," — was imme- 
diately upon his death carried by angels and deposited in 
the bosom of Abraham ; — that the rich man at his death 
was placed not in an "intermediate state; " not in Dr. Jor- 
tin's u insensible condition till the last day;" but was in 
hell " tormented in flame ;" — that the receptacle for the 
virtuous is so immediately in the neighbourhood of that 
for the wicked, that the parties can see each other, — that 
* Luke xvi. f Dr. Jortin's Sermons. 



INTERMEDIATE STATE. 89 

they can hold familiar conversation together; — that Abra- 
ham, though on the other "side of the gulf" and in 
heaven, is still the " Father " of the wicked in hell; and 
that the aforesaid wicked are acknowledged by Abraham 
to be his sons: and that, finally,, if it be contended that 
it was not the living, but the immortal soul of Lazarus 
that was in Abraham's bosom, and the immortal soul of 
the rich man that required a drop of water to cool its im- 
mortal tongue, — then immaterial spirits can be burned 
by material fire ; and though not visible to the sight, nor 
tangible to the touch, could go to the rich man's "father's 
house/' to his five brethren, and could " testify unto 
them," lest they also came to the like place of torment. — 
This, literally, is the fair interpretation of this parable, 
teaching, as it is said to do, u the immediate transition of 
the soul into one or other of these two different states, 
which is observable in the narration or parable itself, from 
their death to their succeeding state of happiness or mi- 
sery*." And we might, perhaps, leave to our adversaries 
the solution of their own difficulties, and the reconciling 
of such direct contradictions in their system as flow from 
applying this parable to the support of the doctrine of an 
intermediate state of existence. One, indeed, among their 
number has felt it judicious not to hazard too large a por- 
tion of his faith upon the present parable, and admits, 
that it is " not a representation of an intermediate 
state, but of the final state of the righteous and the 
wickedf ." This admission of the reverend immaterialist 
is completely and to the fullest extent giving up the point 
in debate : but still it may be shown that it is not even a 
representation of " the final state of the righteous and the 
wicked," much less that for which Macknight puts in a 

* See Bulkley's Discourses on the Parables of the New Testament. 
t Bishop Warburton. 



90 



PARABLES. 



claim, — " that it teaches us that the souls of men are im- 
mortal ; that they subsist in a separate state after the 
dissolution of the body ; and that they" (Query — in such 
state,) u are rewarded or punished according to their ac- 
tions in this life*." From the preceding chapter it will 
be seen that the u Pharisees and Scribes murmured" at 
the teaching of Jesus, and that he " spake parables unto 
them;" this teaching by parables being u that kind of alle- 
gory which consists of a continued narration of a fictitious 
event, applied by way of simile to the illustration of some 
important truthf." The design of Jesus in the several 
parables in the present connexion would appear to be, to 
show that his attention to u publicans and sinners" was 
agreeable to the will of God; to expose the self-righteous 
Jews, who " justified themselves before men;" to correct 
avaricious dispositions — "for the Pharisees, who were 
covetous, heard all these things, and they derided him;" 
and wisely and by gradual steps to exhibit to his disci- 
ples and others the true character of God, and exhibit a 
knowledge of the divine dispensations in developing the 
covenant with Abraham, by the calling in of the Gentiles. 
To these objects the present parable and that of the Pro- 
digal Son, with which it is connected, appear to be espe- 
cially directed : — in the latter the eldest son, in the for- 
mer the ee certain rich man, clothed in purple and fine 
linen," are the representatives of the proud and privileged 
Jew ; exactly those characters, some of whom w T ere then 
near Jesus, and who, though "highly esteemed among 
men, were an abomination in the sight of God:" — in the 
one case the outcast son, in the other the despised beg- 
gar, appear to be the representatives of the Gentiles. 
But " the law and the prophets were until John ; since 

* Macknight, vol. ii. p. 294. 

f Bishop Lowth's Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews. 



ANGELS. 91 

that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man 
presseth into it." (Luke xvi. verse 16.) 

The middle wall of partition being thus broken down 
by the admission into the church (since the proclamation 
of John) of the Gentiles as well as the Jews, such as 
entered into it were carried by angels* — by messengers, — 
that is, by Jesus and his Apostles, — into Abraham's bosom 
— into the kingdom of God; that kingdom or church 
which originated with Abraham, and the enlargement of 
which at the time of Jesus being misunderstood by the 
Jews, they in their turn became the outcasts. They had 
received their "good things," and the Gentiles their "evil 
ones;" but now they were comforted, and the Jews were 
tormented ; because they would not hear Moses and the 
prophets : neither were they persuaded when one did rise 
from the dead. 

The angels which kept not their first estate, 
spoken of in Jude, I notice merely because it has been 
adduced in this controversy ; though, as being evidently 
unconnected with it, that notice will be necessarily brief. 
"And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left 
their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains 
under darkness unto the judgement of the great day." 
(verse 6.) Whatever opinions the phraseology of this 
passage may have given rise to, that of authorizing the 
doctrine of an intermediate state for the souls of men it 

* "The word angel is not properly a denomination of nature, but 
of office ; denoting as much as nuncius, messenger, a person employed 
to carry one's orders, or to declare his will." — Eees's Cyclopaedia, 
"Angel." "The Greek word we render angel does, in its primitive 
sense, signify nothing more than messenger ; and accordingly, in 
James ii. 25, it is the same Greek word that is rendered angels in other 
passages that is there rendered messengers." — See Goadby, vol. iv. 
p. 910. 



92 SPIRITS IN PRISON. 

is not chargeable with ; for it speaks not of men, not of 
souls, not of a state of darkness for the souls of men; nor 
does it give the slightest countenance to Bishop Bull's 
general theory, — that "the souls of all the wicked are 
presently after death in a state of very great misery, and 
yet dreading a far greater misery at the day of judge- 
ment *." 

Preaching to the spirits in prison. — " By which 
also he" (Jesus) "went and preached unto the spirits in 
prison; which sometime were disobedient, when once the 
longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while 
the ark was preparing, wherein few, that is eight souls, 
were saved by waterf ." From these verses it has been 
contended, that the Apostle assumes an intermediate 
state of conscious existence ; but it does not appear to 
have any reference to an intermediate, or, indeed, to any 
state of future existence. Peter commences his letter by 
addressing it to the believers " scattered abroad;" ex- 
horting them to withstand persecution, such being "the 
trial of their faith,'' (which was "more precious than 
gold, which perisheth;") and as an example to them, 
the sufferings of Jesus are referred to, " that he might 
bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but 

* A correct understanding of this passage will show, that besides 
being wholly irrelevant to the doctrine of an intermediate state, it is 
also free from sanctioning another most absurd hypothesis, in support 
of which it is universally brought, — that of fallen angels ; — the 
parties referred to by Jude being the messengers (as recorded in Num- 
bers xiv.) who were sent to spy out the land, and who for bringing up 
a "false report" lost their "first estate," or the pre-eminence which 
as " rulers " they had possessed. For a full and convincing support 
of these ideas, consult Bekker, and also Goadby's Bible, vol. iv. 910, 
&c. ; and for passages illustrative of the peculiar phraseology of the 
verse, see Job x. 21, &c; and Acts iii. 24. 

f 1 Peter iii. 19, 20. 



SPIRITS IN PRISON. 93 

quickened by the spirit;" that is, raised from the dead 
by the spirit of God — "by the power of God*." The 
same idea is expressed by Paul, though in somewhat dif- 
ferent language : "Though he was crucified, yet he liveth 
by the power of Godf :" by which (power or authority) 
" he went and preached unto the spirits " (persons) " in 
prison;" or, in other language, to those whose "minds " 
were imprisoned ; being in that state of darkness which 
in the succeeding chapter is represented as one of death : 
"for the Gospel was preached also to them that are deadj;" 
that is, "dead in trespasses and sins." And thus, such 
persons — spirits — being morally and mentally in prison, 
to them Jesus, by preaching (proclaiming) the Gospel, 
broke their fetters, and released them from prison, in the 
sense in which moral delivery is spoken of in Isaiah : — 
" The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, to proclaim li- 
berty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to 
them that are bound §." Thus a close attention to the 
connexion becomes essential, and also a reference to the 
peculiar phraseology ; and this will be more fully seen in 
Isaiah's prophecy of the mission of him who, in Peter's 
language, preached to the spirits in prison : — "I the 
Lord have called thee, and give thee for a covenant of the 
people, for a light of the Gentiles ; to open the blind eyes, 
to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that 
sit in darkness out of the prison-house ||." Looking, there- 
fore, at the language of corresponding passages as to what 
the "state" was in which they were placed, and who the 
spirits were to whom Jesus "preached" this passage ceases 
to be of difficult solution. But had not Isaiah thus fur- 
nished an easy illustration, the connexion of the Apostle's 

* See Goadby's Bible, vol. iv. p. 863; marginal reading of Barker's 
Bible; and Wynne's Testament, vol. ii. p. 437. f 2 Cor. xiii. 4. 

: 1 Peter vi. 1, &c. § Isaiah lxi. 1. || Isaiah xlii. 6, &c. 



94 SPIRITS IN PRISON. 

argument in the after verses would have effected that object; 
the intention of the writer being to draw a parallel between 
those persons who were in a state of mental darkness in 
the days of Noah and in the apostolic age ; which inten- 
tion would have been rendered more obvious, if our trans- 
lators had introduced a single supplemental word, as they 
have so frequently done in other instances, to express the 
sense of the original ; and the passage would then have 
stood thus — " By which he went and preached to the spi- 
rits in prison, which sometime " — or, as the original im- 
ports, informer time — "were disobedient; as when once 
the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah," &c. 
And to complete his parallel, it will be seen the Apostle 
proceeds to show that the ark was then the means of saving 
the believers of the antediluvian world, as baptism, or a pub- 
lic acknowledgement of the messiahship of Jesus, was the 
means of saving the believers in the Jewish w r orld. Such, 
then, appearing to be the Scriptural import of" preaching 
to the spirits in prison," we submit that the hypothesis 
relative to immaterial spirits, and their residence in an in- 
termediate state, has, in this connexion, no countenance. 
Also, whilst the views of Law, Priestley, and others, in 
some particulars upon this passage, would seem to be 
hardly satisfactory, yet their opinions afford no aid to the 
immaterialists. For although these writers apply it to 
the Gentiles only, this application of it to both Jews and 
Gentiles, to all in fact whose minds were u in prison," 
is only a more extensive use of the same principles of 
argument. And should an exception be taken to these 
views, from the fact that Jesus did not preach to the Gen- 
tiles, the reply is ready, — that his authorizing the Apostles 
to do so will, in Scriptural language, be the same thing. 
Thus Paul to the Ephesians, "For he" (Jesus) "is our 
peace, who hath made both one : and came and preached 



SPIRITS OP JUST MEN. 95 

peace to you" (Gentiles,) "which were afar off) and to 
them that were nigh*." 

The "spirits of just men made perfect f," and "the 

SOULS OF THEM THAT WERE SLAIN FOR THE WORD OF 

God J/' are the passages which next claim attention. To 
commence with the former., of which the following expla- 
nation has been offered ; it " signifies the best state to which 
an unembodied spirit can come ; but that after the day of 
judgement^ spirits will then be embodied; that "as soon 
as good Christians depart out of this life, they will join the 
company of them" — {i.e. unembodied spirits.) The pas- 
sage, however, will be seen to fail completely in proving the 
point for which it is adduced ; for it relates to believers, 
in the present state of existence, and to the distinguished 
honours and privileges to which they are called ; and has no 
reference to immaterial spirits, or to a state prior to the re- 
surrection, in which such spirits will be " made perfect ." 
The writer, in figurative and bold language, exhorts those 
whom he addresses to " follow peace with all men, with- 
out which no man shall see the Lord : looking diligently 
lest any man fail of the grace of God. . . . For ye are come 
to the general assembly and church of the first-born, and 
to God the judge of all ; — to the spirits of just men made 
perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant §." 
In a corrected translation, this passage reads thus : " Ye 
are come to the general assembly and congregation of the 
first-born, and to God the judge of all, and to just men 
made perfect ||." But if this translation be questioned, 
and the word "spirits" retained, still there is not any- 
thing in the passage expressive of immaterial existence, 

* Ephes. ii. 1/, &c. f Heb. xii. 23. J Rev. vi. 9. 

§ Heb. xii. 14, 23, &c. 

|| The Epistles of Paul the Apostle, &c. by Thomas Belsham, vol. iv. 
p. 701. 



96 SOULS SLAIN. 

distinct and separate from the entire living man in the 
present life. Mr. Belsham, however, defends his omis- 
sion of "spirits," both by a reference to the original, 
and the use of the term in parallel passages ; from which 
he ably contends, " The spirit of a man, is a man him- 
self ; the spirit of God, is God himself*; the spirit 

of Timothy, is Timothy himself f : the spirits of just 

men, therefore, are just men themselves By this in- 
terpretation the writer appears to be intelligible and con- 
sistent; but if by 'the spirits of just men made perfect' 
we understand separate souls in an intermediate state, the 
observation is not only irrelevant, but it is not true ; for 
in what sense can believers in Christ be said to be now 
introduced into the society of spirits in heaven? or what 
privilege have they in this respect above good men under 
the law? \" And the perfection here spoken of is clearly 
that which, as members of the " assembly of the first- 
born," they ought to attain to, because of the superior 
privileges the Gospel confers upon them; and can have no 
reference, as Dr. Priestley has observed in his notes on 
this passage, to any condition of good men, or of spirits, 
in a future world. 

In the Revelations, the passage in which the writer 
states, " I saw under the altar the souls of them that were 
slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they 
held §," though adduced with much confidence, has not that 
which perhaps might be conceded to some of the preceding 
passages, — even the semblance of an argument in its fa- 
vour ; for the "souls" in this case should be "lives;" and 
then, the representation of such being under the altar, will be 
seen to be perfectly appropriate; forming, as the verse does, 

* See 1 Cor. ii. 11. f See 2 Tim. iv. 22. 

I The Epistles of Paul the Apostle, by Thomas Belsham, vol. iv. 
p. 701. § Rev. vi. 9. 



SAUL AND THE WITCH OF ENDOR. 97 

part of a most highly figurative representation of the open- 
ing of the six seals ; in which the stars from heaven are 
said to be falling, and the mountains and islands moving 
out of their places : and the particular allusion in the 
sixth verse, appears to be borrowed from the practice at 
the altar of victims in the temple ; at the foot of which 
altar the blood (the life — the soul) was poured out, which 
blood being close to the sanctuary, it was supposed that 
it apprized God of the sacrifice that had been offered 
to him, and that he saw it ; thus the lives of those who 
had sacrificed themselves in the cause of Revelation, are 
here, in bold and beautiful language, described as being 
under the altar, in the sight of God. 

From these passages we turn to one which, chronological- 
ly, should have had the precedence, — Saul and the Witch 
of Endor*, which some adduce to prove the existence of 
immortal souls, and also an intermediate state for their 
reception. Thus, Causin contends that the return of souls, 
as in the case of the prophet Samuel, is appointed by God 
to prove their immortality. A modern writer also asserts 
that " we have one remarkable instance of a phantom, or 
appearance, in the form of Samuel the prophet ; and it is 
not improbable that it was the departed spirit of Samuel 
himself, appearing, not by the incantation of the witch, 
but by the will of God, to denounce his awful vengeance 
against Israel f." Patrick maintains that it was an evil 
spirit in the likeness of Samuel that appeared before Saul J: 
and others have supposed that the appearance of Samuel 
to Saul was a divine miracle § . In forming a judgement 
of this case, it may be well to glance at the characters 

* 1 Sam. xxviii. 

f The Case of Saul, by Granville Sharpe, p. 155 — 157- 
% See Patrick on 1 Sam. xxviii. 12. 
§ See Dr. Waterland's Sermons, vol. ii. p. 267. 
H 



98 EVIL SPIRITS. 

who are represented as acting in it: — First, the king of 
Israel, who upon disobeying the commands of the Deity 
was told, that "the Lord had rejected him from being 
king over Israel/' and who in all his subsequent engage- 
ments with the enemies of Israel was uniformly unsuc- 
cessful; and the cause of such disasters was known by the 
whole people to be, that the God of Israel had rejected 
Saul from reigning over his chosen people; in consequence 
of which he was oppressed with melancholy, (i. e. "an evil 
spirit came upon him;") "and when he saw the host of 
the Philistines, he was afraid, and his heart greatly 
troubled him : and he inquired of the Lord, and the 
Lord answered him not. Then said Saul unto his ser- 
vants, Seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit, that 
I may inquire of her." The second personage in this re- 
presentation is the woman so selected, one whose occu- 
pation agreed with the necromancers of the heathen na- 
tions, " who summoned the spirits of the dead to appear 
before them ; and who carried on their trade in subter- 
ranean caverns, which were well calculated to ensure suc- 
cessful imposition*." But the God of Israel had prohi- 
bited the exercise of such arts ; commanding his people, 
that "When thou art come into the land which the Lord 
thy God giveth thee, there shall not be one who maketh 
his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that 
useth divination, or an observance of times, or an en- 
chanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with fa- 
miliar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer ; for all that 
do these things are an abomination unto the Lord, and be- 
cause of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive 
them out from before theef." The third character assumes 
to be that of Samuel, whom " all Israel, from Dan even to 

* See Michaelis's Commentaries on the Laws of Moses, vol. iv. 
p t 83 — 92. 8vo edit. 1814. f Deut. xviii. 



WITCHES. 99 

Bersheba, knew to be a prophet of the Lord," and who, 
when he " died, all the Israelites were gathered together, 
and lamented him, and buried him in his house at Ra- 
man." 

These facts being premised, we approach the chapter un- 
der examination, in which the defenders of Immaterialism 
would fain make God to sanction that which he had so- 
lemnly denounced as an abomination in his sight; and which 
is supposed to confer upon one whom he had commanded 
to be "cast out of the land," the power to raise from the 
dead even a prophet of God, and through whose instru- 
mentality, although Jehovah would not answer Saul, "nei- 
ther by dreams, nor by urim, nor by prophets," yet he is 
made to answer him by the power of one that had " a fa- 
miliar spirit:" for it is puerile in Mr. Granville Sharpe 
to attempt to get over this difficulty by asserting that the 
communication was not made "by the incantations of the 
witch, but by some respectable agent of the divine will," 
— the text being, "Then said the woman (to Saul), 
Whom shall / bring up unto thee ? And he said, Bring 
me up Samuel. And when the woman saw Samuel, she 
cried with a loud voice # ," &c. So that to the immaterial 
system may be well left whatever benefit it can derive 
from the serious imputations which such an hypothesis 
casts upon the divine government. Besides which, how can 
immaterialism be reconciled with the present relation ? and 
how can that which is spiritual and not visible to the sight, 
be seen to be "an old man covered with a mantle" ? 

But the whole case is clearly one of imposition dex- 
terously practised upon the weak, desponding, and super- 
stitious mind of Saul, and effected clearly by the practice 
of the art of ventriloquy. " The term ( ventriloquus ' is 
compounded of venter, belly, and loquor, to speak; and is 
* Deut. chap, xviii. verses 11 and 12. 

h2 



100 VENTRILOQUISM. 

applied to persons who speak inwardly, so that the voice 
proceeding out of the thorax seems to come from some 
distance, and in any direction." See the Work of M. de 
la Chapelle, published in 1772, in which is shown that in 
the case of Saul, the speech supposed to be addressed to 
him by Samuel, proceeded from the mouth of the sorceress 
of Endor, and that the ancient oracles derived their influ- 
ence from the exercise of this art ; and a reference to the 
original will tend to aid this view of the case : — the He- 
brew of the "familiar spirit" of the witch, is "ob," and 
the plural "oboth;" and such persons were afterwards 
denominated "Pythonesses," thereby implying a pre- 
tence to divination : accordingly, in the Vulgate version 
of 1 Sam. xxviii. 7> 8, the word used is "Python:" be- 
sides which, the witch must have necessarily known Saul, 
who "from his head and shoulders was taller than any 
man" in Israel. Saul throughout the whole performance 
did not of himself see Samuel; the relation is — "When 
the woman saw Samuel, she cried with a loud voice," 
&c. And Saul said to her, "What sawest thou? And 
he said unto her, What form is he of ? " And when she 
had answered the foregoing question, Saul " perceived," 
or acknowledged from the representation of the witch, 
that it was Samuel. Thus the deception upon Saul com- 
pletely succeeded 5 and he " stooped with his face to the 
ground, and bowed himself." And it is especially de- 
serving of remark, that the whole of the after-relation 
made to Saul, while thus prostrate before the sorceress, 
consists in a repetition of what had been long previously 
announced concerning his rejection by God, and of the 
triumph of the Philistines over him, and which was known 
to the Jewish people at large. Thus the whole case in 
reference to Saul admits solely of being viewed, on the 
part of the witch, as a successful juggle. 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 101 

" This day shalt thou be with me in paradise " is a fa- 
vourite passage in this controversy : but it may be shown 
that it in no way warrants the application made of it; and 
indeed the genuineness of the passage itself is also a fair 
subject of dispute. The fact is recorded by Luke only, 
who was not present, and who probably had not even seen 
Jesus. It is not mentioned by John, who witnessed the 
whole scene of the crucifixion. By Mark it is not re- 
ferred to. Nay, more : it is absolutely contradicted by 
Matthew, who states that "the thieves" (i.e. both) "joined 
with the priests and those that passed by, in reviling 
Jesus;" whereas the passage in Luke speaks of one only 
as reviling, and of the other as being favourable towards 
Jesus. The critical part of the argument on this subject 
has been thus shortly but well summed up in a note of the 
Improved Version. "This verse was wanting in the copies 
of Marcian and other reputed heretics, and in some of the 
older copies in the time of Origen ; nor is it cited either 
by Justin, Irenasus, or Tertullian; though the two former 
have quoted almost every text in Luke which relates to the 
crucifixion, and Tertullian wrote concerning the interme- 
diate state." The silence of such writers as these, desirous 
as they constantly were of supporting their Pagan notions 
by a constant reference to the Christian writers, may be 
taken as affording strong evidence against the genuineness 
of the passage; but still, the following explanation has been 
given of this passage in reference to the meaning of the 
original word rendered "paradise," which, to say the least, 
is extremely ingenious. Of the phrase itself there is a full 
explanation in Parkhurst, 8vo edition, p. 498. Paradeisos 
was considered by the Greeks as a barbaric phrase, being 
borrowed by them from the Persians. It has been sup- 
posed to be compounded from a Hebrew word to sepa- 
rate, and an Arabic one to hide, signifying a secret inclo- 



102 PARADISE. 

sure or a hidden place of separation. Thus in one sense 
it signified a garden, park, or inclosure (like those of the 
Oriental monarchs), which are spoken of as " paradises 
full of everything beautiful and good that the earth can 
produce/ 5 In this sense the word appears to have been 
used by the LXX. (Hez. ii. 8; Eccles. ii. 5,) and probably 
by the writer of the Book of Revelations. The man re- 
quested that Jesus should " remember him when he came 
into his kingdom," that is, into his temporal kingdom, it 
being absurd to assume that an individual so circum- 
stanced should have more extended views on this sub- 
ject than the very Apostles themselves. The answer of 
Jesus, it is held, contains a feeling but dignified re- 
proof; "Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with 
me in paradise" (the hidden state) ; as though he had said, 
" It is in vain to employ your last moments on subjects 
of temporal and earthly greatness, when you, like me, 
shall this day repose in the silence and obscurity of the 
grave." 

Verses 52 and 53 of the 27th chapter of Matthew, where- 
in is related that the graves were opened, and the saints 
arose and went into the holy city, after the crucifixion of 
Jesus, is clearly an interpolation : for as to who those 
" saints " were ; for what object they arose ; to whom 
they went ; by whom they were seen ; what they com- 
municated ; or what afterwards became of them, — are all 
points upon which there is not the slightest information : 
besides which, the statement occurs in one historian only; 
an omission on the part of the others, which, had it re- 
lated to some trifling circumstance, would not have re- 
quired particular remark, but which in so extraordinary 
an occurrence as this is related to be, cannot, consistently 
with truth, be easily accounted for. Besides which, even 
taking the verse as it stands, it is not the souls of the 



SLEEP. DEATH. 



103 



saints in an active state of existence, but " many bodies 
of the saints, which slept, arose." 

We have now but very briefly to notice those expres- 
sions of the Scriptures which are said to " imply an in- 
termediate state;" the first and chief of such being the 
Scriptural use of the term " sleep;" which is thus argued: 
— "Death, you say, is sleep. What is sleep ? Is the mind, 
during this torpor of the body, utterly and always void of 
thought ? Death, if it reduces the mind to a total insen- 
sibility, must be something more than sleep ; for in sleep 
there is often a strong consciousness at least, if not a kind 
of separate existence* " And it is contended, that " to 
sleep," or " to sleep with their fathers," is only " a state 
of inaction, or kind of insensibility, during which we still 
existf ." To which the reply is offered, — that in the Scrip- 
tures, as in other writings, sleep is often used in a figurative 
sense, to express death : in proof of which, take the cases, 
first, of Stephen; of whom, when he was put to death, it 
is said he "fell asleep;" and, secondly, that of Lazarus, 
— "Our friend Lazarus sleep eth ; but I go that I may 
awake him out of sleep. Then said his disciples, If he 
sleep, he shall do well. Howbeit Jesus spake of his 
death : but they thought that he had spoken of taking of 
rest in sleep. Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Laza- 
rus is dead%" So that the play upon the word "sleep" 
will not be of avail to the immaterialist ; for, most clearly, 
in the passages in debate "death" is not merely some- 
thing more than the word " sleep," but the latter is figu- 
ratively used to express the former. And the Apostle Paul 
sets this matter completely at rest in his remarks touching 

* Steffe's Letters on Scripture Proofs of a Separate Intermediate State 
of Existence after Death, pp. 37, 38. 

f Essay on the Immateriality of the Soul, in reply to Dr. Priestley, 
pp. 40, 41, &c. J John xi. 



104 SLEEP. DEATH. 

the resurrection; in which there is no evidence to coun- 
tenance an immediate entrance upon futurity at the mo- 
ment of death ; in which there is no hint given of an in- 
termediate state ; but, in which, the fact of the resurrec- 
tion of Jesus being admitted; then the reasoning is, — not 
that there was, not that there is at death, but that there 
will be a future life, and which is made to rest solely on the 
resurrection from the dead ; — if there be no resurrection, 
" then they also that are fallen asleep in Christ are pe- 
rished*. 39 

It will also be found that the state of death, besides be- 
ing represented in the Scriptures by the idea of sleep, is 
also said to place man in that condition in which he is at 
rest; that it is a "resting place/' a "house," a state of 
"silence/' of oblivion, of destruction and corruption f : and 
thus the following passages have fairly no difficulty or 
equivocation attached to them — "Thou shalt go to thy 
fathers in peace f;" " going to the grave mourning^;" 
" going down to the pit||;" and numerous parallel pas- 
sages ; the whole of which, however, will be found to be 
simply and easily explained by the following instances, in 
which the same expressions are used, and in a corre- 
sponding sense. Bathsheba addresses David for the pur- 
pose of getting him to appoint her son Solomon to reign 
over Israel; "Otherwise it shall come to pass, when my 
lord the king shall sleep with his fathers, that I and my 
son Solomon shall be counted offenders %." And in the 
following chapter the death of David is recorded in cor- 
responding terms : " So David slept with his fathers, and 
was buried in the city of David**/' Again, in Job: "As 
the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and 

* l Cor. xv. 18. f See Bishop Law's Theory, p. 388, &c. 

I Gen. xv. 15. § Gen. xxxvii. 35. 

|| Isaiah xxxviii. 18. 1J 1 Kings i. 21. ** 1 Kings ii. 10. 



THE RESURRECTION. TD5 

drieth up : so man lieth down, and riseth not; till the hea- 
vens be no more, they shall not awake nor be raised out 
of their sleep* ':" 

Having now glanced at the passages which have 
been advanced in support of Immaterialism ; and having 
examined the "many expressions that imply an inter- 
mediate and separate state/' we are placed in a condition 
to estimate the grounds of Dr. Jortin's confession, — that 
of such a state " the Scriptures have not said so much as 
one could wish;" though, in truth, the Doctor ought to 
have acknowledged that the Scriptures say not anything 
of such a state, that the futurity which is therein pro- 
mised is not one which we commence upon immediately 
at the dissolution of the body, and by virtue of a never- 
dying principle within us ; but that, "when all that are in 
their graves" (not in an intermediate state,) "shall hear 
the voice of the Son of man, and shall come forth ; they 
that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and 
they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of condem- 
nation-)-. " 

* Job xiv. 11, 12. t John v. 28, &c. 



106 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE RESURRECTION. 

" If the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised; and if Christ be not 
raised, your faith is vain ; ye are yet in your sins : then they also 

WHICH ARE FALLEN ASLEEP IN CHRIST ARE PERISHED." 1 Cor. XV. 

17, 18. 

Admit the force of the Apostle's argument, and the 
doctrine of the materiality of man follows as an inevitable 
consequence : for, as has been briefly and clearly stated, 
ce death and resurrection are terms opposed to each other 
a real resurrection must be preceded by an actual death 
that which does not die, cannot be raised from the dead 
the resurrection made known in the Scriptures is a resur- 
rection from the dead*." This view of future existence 
will be seen directly to emanate from the declarations of 
Jesus, as well as from the teaching of his Apostles ; it 
having been announced as " the will of him that sent me, 
that every one that seeth the Son, and believeth on him, 
may have everlasting life ; and / will raise him up at the 
last dayf." And he who from right principles could give 
entertainment to others, is told to "call the poor, the 
maimed, the lame, the blind : and thou shalt be blessed ; 
for they cannot recompense thee — thou shalt be recom- 
pensed at the resurrection of the just %." Thus, "the will 
of him" that sent the Messiah was to make known to the 

* See " TJie Resurrection from the Bead an Essential Doctrine of the 
Gospel." By R. Wright.— P. 6. 1820. 
f John vi. 40. J Luke xiv. 13, 14. 



THE RESURRECTION. 107 

world " everlasting life;" a life, from the very terms of 
the communication, not derivable from a self-existent, im- 
material principle; but from the " resurrection from the 
dead," when all that are in their graves shall come forth 
to the resurrection of life, or to that of condemnation. 
It was for proclaiming this doctrine, and that too itt de- 
fiance of both Jewish and Heathen authorities, and even 
of martyrdom itself, on the part of the Apostles, that the 
" priests, and the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees 
came upon them; being grieved that they taught the peo- 
ple, and preached through Jesus" (not the immortality of 
the soul,) " the resurrection from the dead*." 

The hope of a future state of existence, built upon this 
foundation, rests not on the belief of an immortal spirit, 
but solely, and to the absolute exclusion of all other doc- 
trines, upon the divinely authorized declarations of the 
Messiah, which were illustrated and confirmed by the 
fact that God had raised the man Jesus from the dead ; 
for "if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is 
Christ not risen; and if Christ be not risen, then is our 
preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are 
found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of 
God that he raised up Christ; whom he raised not up, if 
so be that the dead rise notf ." So that from the reason- 
ing of Paul it is clear to demonstration, that if future 
existence depends upon our being animated by an im- 
material spirit, the Apostle was not favoured with the 
knowledge of such a passport to immortality, and he 
was therefore deprived of a most easy and infallible mode 
of silencing all gainsayers; — for of what avail to his argu- 
ment could be the resurrection of Jesus, provided the 
doctrine of Immaterialism were true ? as, in that case, 

* Acts iv. 1, 2. t 1 Cor. xv. 13, 14, 15. 



108 THE RESURRECTION. 

whether the Messiah was raised from the dead, or whether 
he was not, immortality was alike ensured to every man, 
and that too, upon the showing of the Immaterialist, cy- 
an inherent immortality. But the Apostle Paul, as if 
possessed of a foreknowledge of the perversions which the 
doctrine of a future state was destined to undergo, has put 
upon record such views in relation thereto as ought to ex- 
plode every fallacious theory. Thus, the Thessalonians are 
told, "I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, con- 
cerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, as others 
which have no hope : for if we believe that Jesus died and 
rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God 

bring with him; wherefore comfort one another with 

these words *." Upon the supposition of all being animated 
by an immortal principle, how or why should the Apostle, 
when expressly treating of a future state, and the hopes 
consequent upon its belief, have omitted all reference 
thereto ? And, upon the same hypothesis, why should the 
Thessalonians "sorrow"? — why should they have "no 
hope"? for, whether Jesus had "risen again" or not, 
that fact could neither retard nor accelerate the future life 
of immortal souls. But in addition, the Apostle concludes 
a portion of his argument to the Corinthians, with a 
remark which should put this question beyond all con- 
troversy; for, "if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain ; 
ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen 
asleep in Christ are perished!!! If in this life only we 
have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable f." 
Admit this argument, and the Immaterialist who is a 
believer in Revelation ought in fairness either to renounce 
his system, or renounce Paul; for the Apostle unequivo- 
cally asserts (and indeed his argument can have no weight, 

* 1 Thess. iv. 13, 14, 18. f 1 Cor. xv. 17, 18, 19. 



THE RESURRECTION. 109 

except upon its admission,) the complete mortality of the 
entire man, who, when he has "fallen asleep/' cannot 
have hopes of again existing, but by means of a resur- 
rection from the dead; the evidence for which was made 
to rest, not upon an inherent immortality, but upon the 
fact that the man Jesus had been raised from the dead: 
for, "if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is 
Christ not risen/' And in the emphatic language of an- 
other Apostle — "Blessed be the God and Father of 
our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant 
mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the 
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inhe- 
ritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not 
away, reserved in heaven for you # ." 

The form and manner of the resurrection has long: 
been a subject of considerable disputation; and some of the 
defenders of Immaterialism have even laboured to make 
their system accord with the Scriptures, by asserting that 
the same identical flesh and blood from which the soul took 
its departure at death, will be again animated by the same 
soul, and thereby enjoy immortality f; although Paul has 
announced, that we "shall be changed; " "that corruption 
cannot inherit incorruption ;" and that we shall be "raised 
incorruptible." On the other hand, the enemies of Re- 
velation have not failed to avail themselves of this theory, 
and have generally thus stated the difficulties with which 
it is attended: "The same piece of matter may happen to 
be a part of two or more bodies ; as a fish feeding on a 

* 1 Pet. i. 3, 4. 

f As an example of the mode of reasoning in support of this theory, 
take the following passage from Addison : " He triumphs in his agonies, 
whilst the soul springs forward to the great object which she has always 
had in view, and leaves the body with an expectation of being reunited 
to her in a glorious and joyful resurrection." 



110 LOCKE. 

man, and another man afterwards feeding on the fish, — 
part of the body of the first man becomes first in- 
corporated with the fish, and afterwards in the fish with 
the last man. Instances have been known of one man 
feeding upon another; and where the substance of one 
man is thus converted into the substance of another, such 
cannot rise with his whole body; — and to which shall the 
part in common belong ? " 

Whatever force these objections may have, they are only 
applicable to those who, in common with the Bishop of 
Worcester in his controversy with Locke, contend for the 
resurrection of the same body, and will be found to fall 
perfectly harmless, when applied to the Scriptural doctrine 
of a future life; "for" (says Locke) "in the New Testament, 
I find, our Saviour and the Apostles preach the resurrection 
of the dead, and the resurrection from the dead; but I do 
not remember any place where the resurrection of the same 
body is so much as mentioned; nay, which is very re- 
markable in the case, I do not remember in any place of 
the New Testament, where the general resurrection at the 
last day is spoken of, any such expression as the resurrec- 
tion of the body, much less of the same body." And so 
sensible was Mr. Locke of the importance of the closest 
attention to Scriptural phraseology in relation to this 
doctrine, that he records his thanks to his adversary for 
having, by his opposition, caused him to give to it in- 
creased attention: "I must not part with this article of 
the resurrection, without returning my thanks to Your 
Lordship for making me take notice of a fault in my Essay. 
When I wrote that book, I took it for granted, as I doubt 
not but many others have done, that the Scriptures have 
mentioned in express terms the resurrection of the body; 
but I now find no such express words in the Scripture as 
that the body shall rise or be raised, or the resurrection 



CONSCIOUS IDENTITY. 1 J 1 

of the body, and I shall in the next edition change these 
words of my book, e the dead bodies of men shall rise,' 
into those of the Scripture — c the dead shall rise* *." To 
this accurate and able statement may be appended the well- 
ascertained facts, that the same flesh and blood — the same 
particles of matter — cannot, agreeably to the known laws 
of nature, be raised in the same person, nor are they 
essential to constitute the same man ; conscious identity 
being the test by means of which the unity, or sameness of 
any given individual can be preserved; and that, too, even 
in the present life, — for the human body is continually 
changing; a man has not entirely the same body today as 
he had yesterday; and it is computed, that in a compara- 
tively short period, the whole human body undergoes such 
a change, as that not a particle of the same body remains. 

Such being the facts touching the living person, this 
view of the case will be further aided by a reference to 
the rapid decomposition of the dead subject, and which 
Shakespeare thus briefly refers to : f( Alexander died, Alex- 
ander was buried, Alexander returned to dust; the dust is 
earth; of earth we make loam, and why of that loam whereto 
he was converted might they not stop a beer barrel ? " 

" Imperious Csesar, dead and turn'd to clay, 
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away." 

A future life is therefore not a re-animation of the same 
particles of matter, but a consciousness of prior existence; 
and it is submitted, that in such consciousness will con- 
sist the resurrection of mankind: and as the term "resur- 
rection" may be deemed expressive of " re-living " and 
thereby have a tendency to sanction the idea of the re- 
animation of the same particles of matter, it would be well 
that generally it should be substituted by " future life," 
such change being fully authorized. 

* Locke's Works, 8vo, 1824, pp. 348, 349, 367. 



]12 MR. THOMAS PAINE. 

The form with which we shall rise from the dead would 
seem of old, as well as in modern times, to have been urged 
as an objection to a future life; and in the instance of cer- 
tain sceptics in the Corinthian church, Paul thus states 
and meets this supposed difficulty: "But some man will 
say, How are the dead raised up ? and with what body do 
they come ? Thou fool ! that which thou sowest is not 
quickened, except it die ; and that which thou sowest, 
thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain; 
.... but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and 
to every seed its own body*/ 5 

From this familiar illustration of the Apostle, much 
misconception has arisen; chiefly, however, from a mis- 
taken idea, that it was designed as a complete exposition 
of the doctrine of a future life; when, in fact, it is not for 
the purpose of proving the resurrection at all, but to 
answer an inquiry, " with what body we should come;" — 
the view involved in which inquiry Paul meets, by stating 
that God giveth to all parts of creation, whether animate or 
inanimate, "whatsoever body it hath pleased him; " and, to 
all, those bodies which are best suited to the purposes for 
which he had designed them, to the circumstances in which 
he placed them, and to the relation which they bear towards 
the rest of creation. Still one class of modern objectors, 
from amongst whom may be selected Mr. Paine, thus 
condemn the reasoning of the Apostle : " Sometimes Paul 
affects to be a naturalist, and to prove his system of re- 
surrection from the principles of vegetation ; but the 
metaphor, in this point of view, is no simile, — it is suc- 
cession, not resurrection: — the progress of an animal from 
one state of being to another, as from a worm to a butter- 
fly, applies to the case; but this of a grain does not, and 

* 1 Cor. xv. 35 to 38. 



PAINE. PRIESTLEY. 113 

shows Paul to have been what he says of others — a fool*." 
A close attention, however, to the argument of Paul would 
have shown Mr. Paine, that it was not to "prove his system 
of resurrection" that he illustrated his idea by seed sown 
in the ground; that branch of his argument having been 
brought to a conclusion in the preceding verses by a refer- 
ence to the important fact, a fact which the Corinthians 
admitted, that the Messiah had been raised from the dead : 
— of the several witnesses in attestation of this fact, the 
first named was Cephas, then the twelve, then five hun- 
dred brethren at once; and last of all, the humble, and de- 
voted, and eloquent Apostle, he being one born of due 
time ; and all, upon the establishment of whose testimony, 
and not upon the illustration of the seed sown in the 
ground, Paul "proves his system;" and without mani- 
festing a particle of that quality which the author of the 
Age of Reason might himself have luxuriated in, — of 
"affecting to be a naturalist;" and that too, without 
going into details as to hoiv, and in what manner, the de- 
signs of God upon such a subject should be carried into 
effect; though in fact, had Paul used the simile of the 
seed with the object stated, his reasoning would not have 
merited the coarse dogmatism which, at the hands of 
Mr. Paine, it has received : Dr. Priestley, indeed, had 
long before the appearance of Mr. Paine's critique re- 
marked, that " the comparison is not to be supposed to 
apply throughout, as if the Apostle intended to say, that 
by a law of nature, similar to that of the re-production 
of seeds from seeds, a dead man should produce a living 
one, for the cases are remarkably different, there being 
an apparent living principle or germ, the expansion of 
which makes the future plant ; so that if the whole seed 
should ever become putrid, no other plant or seed could 

* Age of Reason, Part II. p. 85. 
I 



114 THOMAS PAINE. 

be produced from it; but as antecedent to experience, we 
could not have known this, but should rather have imagined 
that a seed buried in the ground would be absolutely lost; 
so, notwithstanding appearances to the contrary, with 
respect to man, though he be buried, the time may come 
when he will appear again*." 

But had Paul's knowledge of natural history equalled 
that of even the author of the Age of Reason, and had 
he attempted to prove "his system of resurrection," by 
"the progress of an animal from one state of being to 
another, as from a worm to a butterfly," then indeed his 
knowledge and his reasoning might well have been im- 
peached; for in the instance of seed sown in the earth, 
there is, to ordinary observation, if not a real, an ap- 
parent extinction of life, and the production from the 
grain thus sown in the earth presents a different aspect 
to that of the seed from which it has sprung; hence Paul's 
case in replying to the disingenuous quibble " with what 
bodies do they come," is ably and philosophically sus- 
tained, God giving to the new production that "body 
which hath pleased him," and to every seed, in common 
with all the works of the Almighty mind, "its dwn (its 
suitable) body." In Mr. Paine's amended case, however, 
can it be held that there is either a real or an apparent 
extinction ; the worm, in becoming a butterfly, merely 
undergoing a change of form ? But had the Apostle in- 
deed argued the doctrine of a future life, (as Mr. Paine 
intimates he ought to have done,) and had he been so im- 
becile in his reasoning as to apply to his case the illus- 
tration of the butterfly, which if it proved anything would 
tend to establish the negative of his position, then in 
truth he might have merited the imputation of folly: and 
further, had he gone beyond this, and thus addressing the 

• Priestley's Notes on the Bible, vol. iv. p. 160. 



THOMAS PA[NE. 115 

sceptical Corinthians, have stated, How say some among 
you that there will be no resurrection of the dead ? " I 
trouble not myself about the mode of future existence : 
I content myself with believing it even to positive con- 
viction : — It appears more probable to me that I shall 
continue to exist hereafter, than that I should have had 
existence*." 

Without stopping to inquire what Mr. Paine might have 
said of Paul, had the Apostle thus met the objections to 
the resurrection, it would not be difficult to conceive what 
ought to have been the estimate of such a mode of satis- 
fying doubting minds with argument or with authority; 
neither would the case be improved, if upon a renewed 
application to their great leader the Corinthians were thus 
replied to : I am not well able to offer you arguments and 
evidence that you shall live again, because the fact is con- 
trary to the evidence of our senses, and one which the Di- 
vine commands alone can satisfactorily establish amongst 
mankind, — although the man Jesus was raised from the 
dead, amidst other purposes, for that of attesting the resur- 
rection of all mankind, and although I, with a host of others, 
have been an eye-witness of his resurrection, yet all this 
availeth nothing, because " a very numerous part of the 
animal creation preach to you far better than I (Paul) the 
belief of a life hereafter ; their little life resembles an earth 
and a heaven, a present and a future state, and comprises 
immortality in miniature \. iy 

But to return to the argument : The simile used by Paul, 
it has been seen, was not to prove the resurrection, but 
simply to meet the question, as to our form in a future 
state ; and in support of the position, that " God giveth 

* See Mr. Paine's Confession of Faith, Age of Reason, Part I. 
p. 52. 

f Paine's Age of Reason, Part II. p. 84. 

i2 



11G .LOCKE. 

a body as it hath pleased him" as instanced in every 
exercise of the Almighty power ; that power, the mag- 
nitude and infinity of which was equally developed in 
the minute as in the vast in creation; and that in all 
there was an evidence of the fitness of every form to the 
circumstances, and for the purposes for which it was 
created, as demonstrated in the production of the fruits 
of the earth — -in the formation of beasts — of birds — of 
fishes — of men — of bodies terrestrial and celestial — in the 
glory of the sun — of the moon — of the stars, —and, u as 
one star differeth from another star in glory, so also is the 
resurrection of the dead: it is sown in corruption, it is 
raised in incorruption; it is sown in weakness, it is raised 
in power; it is sown an animal body, it is raised a spiritual 
body; for there is an animal* body, and there is a spiri- 
tual body." (vv. 41 — 43.) "Paul," says Locke, "means to 
show, "that as we now have animal bodies, which, unless 
supported by a constant supply of food and air, will fail 
and perish, and at last, do what we can, will dissolve, and 
come to an end, so that at the resurrection we shall have 

* The received text reads, "it is sown a natural body," which tends 
to mislead the reader. The adoption of the above rendering is sup- 
ported by numerous authorities. See Macknight, Belsham, and Locke ; 
the latter of whom states, that the term "translated in the Bible a 
natural body, should be translated an animal body." And, in con- 
formity with this view of the present and preceding passages, the late 
Mr. Alexander has thus ably paraphrased these verses : — " Shall we 
imagine that the Being who annually renews the face of Nature, and 
gives fresh life to the world of plants and vegetables, is either unwill- 
ing to exert himself in behalf of reasonable beings, or can find no re- 
sources in his power and wisdom, for restoring men to life, and furnish- 
ing them with such bodies as are adapted to a more perfect and 
durable state of existence ? This will appear still more incredible if we 
consider the immense variety which reigns throughout the works of 
Nature, and in what manner the Creator of all things has furnished 
the almost endless tribes of animals which inhabit this globe with a 
form and temperament peculiar to themselves, and at the same time 



I. CORINTHIANS 15TH. 117 

bodies which shall have an essential, natural, and insepa- 
rable life in them;" that life which is promised by Jesus 
to those " which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that 
world, and the resurrection from the dead; for neither can 
they die any more ; for they are equal to the angels (mes- 
sengers), and are the children of God, being the children 
of the resurrection *." 

Thus the argument pursued by Paul to convince those 
in the Corinthian church who were sceptical as to a future 
state, is of great importance; seeing, that whilst he does 
not even glance at the theories of the Immaterialists, yet, 
had his argument been expressly shaped for the purpose 
of overthrowing their doctrines, it could not have been 
more successful; and while the certainty of futurity is 
maintained, some of the particulars characteristic thereof 
are also treated upon, by which means the Apostle thus 
presents a connected view of the entire subject ; for 
u now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first 
fruits of them that slept;" the first fruits in the Mosaic 
lawf , being the first ripe corn gathered before the rest, 

exquisitely accommodated to their condition and ways of living. Man 
is sown and buried in the ground, but is raised incorruptible, without 
the least tendency to a decay ; (he) is consigned to the ground in a 
state of dishonour, when the breath being departed, the dust returns 
to dust, and mingles with its native earth; but that which is raised 
appears with peculiar marks of honour and dignity; it (he) is sown in 
weakness, the fine machine being totally disordered, its action ceased, 
and the organs of sense no longer able to perform any part of their 
wonted service; but it (he) is raised with accessions of power and 
strength, and with an improved capacity of performing all the actions 
of a nobler life. An animal body is sown in the ground, and endued 
with the breath of life, but a life imperfect and momentary, subject to 
disease, sorrow, and travail ; but a spiritual body is raised, of a more 
refined and perfect constitution, and which is superior to all the pains 
and evils of mortality." — Paraphrase upon 15th Corinthians. By John 
Alexander, 1766, p. 58. 

* Luke xx. 35, 36. f Lev. xxiii. 10. 



118 SECOND COMING OF JESUS. 

such being the earnest and pledge of the future harvest; 
a figure, as applied to a future state of existence, illustra- 
tive of the situation occupied by Jesus relatively towards 
others. " But every man in his own order : Christ the 
first fruits; afterwards they that are Christ's at his coming. 
Then will the end be, when God the Father delivereth 
up the kingdom to him; when he shall have put down 
all rule, all authority and power ; for he must reign until 
he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy 
that shall be destroyed is death. And when all things 
shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also him- 
self be subject unto him that put all things under him # , 
that God may be all in all." See verses 23 to 28. 

The order of the resurrection, as stated by Paul, has 
given rise to much diversity of opinion ; some main- 
taining that it is a relation of the several classes of man- 
kind, which are all to rise at the general resurrection; 
others that it is a statement of — firstly, the resurrection of 

* In the adoption of the above translation, there is a wide departure 
from the received text : the reasons for so doing are, that, whilst the 
common translation has given rise to the most opposing theories, it 
fails to convey to the mind any clear and connected view of the Apostle's 
argument: this will he more clearly seen by comparing the 24th and 
28th verses. In the former, "he" that is to put down all rule, au- 
thority, and power" is Jesus. In the latter, "he" that is to "put all 
things under him" is God. In the 24th verse, when the "end" cometh, 
Jesus is to deliver up the kingdom to God. Now " the kingdom " may 
be deemed to be the kingdom or church of God — not the kingdom 
or church of Jesus; consequently Jesus could not "deliver" that up 
which was not his to deliver. To make the 25th verse accord with the 
common translation of the 24th, a new feature is appropriated to the 
Messiah's office ; that of making him reign " until he hath put all 
enemies under his feet," when the declaration of the Supreme Being 
is, " Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy foot- 
stool." See Psalm ex; Matthew xxii. 43; Acts ii. 34. Throughout 
the Scriptures, the punishment of the enemies of truth proceeds di- 
rectly from the Deity alone, whose benevolence is in an equal degree 
shown, whether in punishing or in rewarding and exalting; and in re- 



SECOND COMING OF JESUS. 119 

Jesus ; secondly, the resurrection of the virtuous ; thirdly, 
that of the wicked, who, after having passed through a 
necessary state of discipline, shall be made virtuous and 
happy: and others esteem the verses, from the 23rd to 
the 29th inclusive, to be descriptive of three distinct and 
distant periods ; firstly, the resurrection of Jesus ; second- 
ly, that of his devoted servants in every age, who, be- 
cause of their obedience to the principles of the Gospel, 
would be raised prior to the general resurrection, and be 
associated with the Messiah when he shall, at Jerusa- 
lem, occupy the throne of David, and his twelve Apostles 
shall judge the twelve tribes of Israel ; fulfilling the de- 
claration in the Revelations, as being of those that are 
"Blessed and holy and that hath part in the first resur- 
rection, for on such the second death hath no power, but 
they shall be priests of God, and of Christ* ;" a period 
of time considered to be referred to by Paul in the Thes- 
salonians, when the "Lord himself shall descend, and 
the dead in Christ shall rise first \" as a reward to such 

lation to whom, when he hath put all enemies under his feet, he will 
then, when that is effected, deliver "the kingdom" to the government of 
his son on earth, subsequently to and arising out of the restoration of 
the Jews to their own land, and the personal (not spiritual) reign of the 
Messiah at his second coming at Jerusalem, when " God shall be all in 
all," by means of the universal spread of the principles of the Gospel. 
The authority in support of the adopted translation is that of Gilbert 
Wakefield, who, instead of " Then cometh the end, when he shall have 
delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father," renders the passage 
" Then will the end be when God the Father delivereth up the kingdom to 
him" (Jesus); and this translation is founded upon the Ethiopic ver- 
sion, which appears to clear up the difficulties of most commentators ; 
difficulties which, by the way, Mr. BelshamJ has said that "nothing 
perhaps but the great event can fully explain." 

* Rev. xx. 6. t 1 Thess. iv. 16. 



{ Belsham's Epistles of Paul, vol. ii. p. 338. 



120 REIGN OF JESUS AT JERUSALEM. 

persons on the one hand, and on the other for the pur- 
pose of placing them in situations to assist in the esta- 
blishment of that promised state of things, in which God 
shall be "all in all;" a state in which the knowledge of the 
Lord should cover the earth as the waters do the channels 
of the deep, — thus fulfilling the promise to Abraham, that 
in him and in his seed should all nations of the earth be 
blessed. These several modes of explaining a passage in 
the writings of the Apostle of acknowledged difficulty, 
are submitted with the remark, that be the correct one 
which it may, the argument against the Immaterialists 
will receive full and equal support, seeing that in each it 
is the "resurrection of the man from the dead," not the 
possession of an immortal spirit, which is made the sole 
ground of hope for a future state of existence ; and in per- 
fect conformity with this view, are the statements of the 
Apostle, in which it is palpable, that an immaterial, im- 
mortal principle is not only not recognised by him, but 
that the admission of its existence would entirely destroy 
his argument. " Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall 
not all sleep, but we shall all be changed ; for the dead 
(not the immortal souls) shall be raised incorruptible, and 
we shall be changed ; for this corruptible must put on in- 
corruption, and this mortal must put on immortality, "then 
shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, "death 
is swallowed up in victory." Need it be here pointed out 
that that which is immaterial cannot be corruptible, that 
that which is immortal can neither be called upon "to put 
on" immortality, nor can it become mortal; that the future 
existence of a being inherently immortal, could neither be 
u a mystery," nor "a victory," neither could it excite un- 
expected exultation ; and the grand climax of the Apostle, 
" O death ! where is thy sting ? O grave ! where is thy 



RESURRECTION. 121 

victory }" would have been a satire upon the understand- 
ing of those to whom he wrote, and could not have failed 
to have furnished his enemies with a triumphant weapon 
against himself : for in the language of Archdeacon Black- 
burn, "of what consequence is it, if they have immortal life 
by nature, whether they have it by promise or not ? what 
does it signify, whether they have hopes of a resurrection 
or not, if they are sure of a future life by provision, and 
allotment without a resurrection*?" 

An assertion has been made by writers, whose senti- 
ments in other particulars are much opposed to each other; 
namely, that a future state of existence is not a doctrine 
peculiar to the Gospel of Jesus. In support of this po- 
sition, Mr. Sturch, in a chapter on this subject, asserts, 
that " as a future state was certainly known to both the 
Jewish and Heathen world, what then becomes of what 
has been termed the peculiar doctrine of the Gospel f?" 
To which inquiry it may be replied, that the future state 
of the Heathen world was one, the views of which varied 
not only in almost every heathen nation, but also in the 
tenets of almost every eminent individual in each nation ; 
and that the whole was built upon the presumed exist- 
ence of an immaterial, immortal principle in man; but 
the Scriptural doctrine of a future life, by means of a re- 
surrection from the dead, and aided by the fact of the re- 
surrection of the man Jesus, is a doctrine "peculiarly" 
of the Gospel — a doctrine which the wise and the great 
among the heathens did not even comprehend ; conceiving 
" Jesus and the resurrection" to be strange gods; "and 
when they (the Athenian Philosophers) heard of the resur- 
rection of the dead, some mocked, and others said, We will 

* Blackburn's Works, vol. iii. p. 195. 
f Apeleutherus, p. 214. 



122 RESURRECTION. 

hear you again of this matter*." A still more recent writer 
than the one just quoted, represents as one and the same 
system, the doctrine of an immortal soul, and that of the 
resurrection from the dead ; for u the immortality of the 
soul, and a future state of rewards and punishments were 
fully recognised in all the religions of the ancient world, 
except the Jewish, and they are equally so in those of 
more modern timesf i" whilst an opposite theory to that 
of Mr. Lawrence, in regard to the Jews, has been main- 
tained by some Jewish as well as Christian writers : among 
the former, Ben Levi thinks " it necessary to take notice 
of the falsity of what Christians in general maintain ; viz. 
that the Jews were unacquainted with the doctrine of the 
Resurrection J i" This writer, however, commits that doc- 
trine in two ways : first, by falling in with the heathen hy- 
pothesis of an immortal soul ; and secondly, by contending 
that the resurrection will be that of the same body. 

It would, however, seem to be the fact, that in the lat- 
ter period of the Jewish history, some sects among that 
people had imbibed, doubtless from their intercourse with 
the heathen nations, the notion of an immortal principle in 
man; but it may be most safely asserted, that, as a nation, 
they had not that which, upon such a subject, can be the 
only ground for believing that we shall live again, — namely, 
the authority of Revelation. The rewards promised to the 
Jews by command of theDeity, and the punishments threat- 
ened, were of a temporal character, nor did the knowledge 
of a future life form any part of the Mosaic oeconomy; still, 
considering that Judaism and the Gospel of Jesus are really 
but parts of one system, it is highly probable that the Pro- 
phets and other eminently enlightened and virtuous men 

* Acts xxxii. \ Lawrence's Lectures, p. 8. 

\ Levi's Dissertation on the Prophecies, p. 171. 



RESURRECTION.— LAWRENCE. 123 

of the Jewish nation were led to infer, from what they did 
know of the dispensations of God, that the present would 
not be the only state of our existence; and such an idea was 
calculated to receive support from the facts of Enoch and 
Elijah not having seen death, as well as from many exalted 
passages in the prophetic writings descriptive of the cha- 
racter and attributes of the Divine Being. Still this must 
have been but conjecture on their parts, and can, in re- 
lation to their sentiments, be but conjecture on ours ; but 
this we do know, that "Jesus the anointed hath brought 
life and immortality to light, through the Gospel*." Such 
life and such immortality is truly a doctrine peculiar to 
the Gospel — a doctrine which, without an express reve- 
lation, man never could have had adequate causes in which 
to place confident hopes ; and it may safely be asserted, 
that the doctrine of the resurrection was not communi- 
cated to mankind before the proclamation of that Gospel, 
of which it forms a leading and a vital part, and as such 
is one of "the great truths of religion, and one of the fun- 
damental principles of morals," and exactly possesses the 
recommendation which a writer before quoted deems es- 
sential to the reception of such a truth ; " for Revelation 
alone is capable of dissipating the uncertainties which per- 
plex those who inquire into the sources of these important 
principles f/' Revelation has dissipated these uncertain- 
ties, though it would seem to but little purpose in the in- 
stance of one (Mr. Lawrence) who can be so utterly igno- 
rant of what it has taught, as to confound the Scriptural 
doctrine of the resurrection of the dead with the " sub- 
lime doctrine of all ages" (i. e. the immortality of the 
soul), and then jeer at Revelation — not for what it does 
teach, but what, from his own ignorance of the subject, 

* 2 Tim. i. 10. f Lawrence's Lectures, p. 12. 



124 BISHOP LAW. 

he deems fit to attribute thereto. It is a doctrine which 
secures the object of future existence, without being en- 
cumbered with the palpable absurdities and philosophi- 
cal puzzles of immaterialism ; — it comports with the most 
enlightened reason, and the deepest philosophical and 
physiological research; and connected as it is with the 
nature, and fitted to secure the object, of revealed re- 
ligion, it is, when justly appreciated, capable of supply- 
ing the most powerful motives, for perfecting the cha- 
racter, and for calling forth the energies and insuring the 
happiness of man, both in the present and in a future 
state of existence. 

With this estimate of the Scriptural doctrine of a fu- 
ture state, the hypothesis of an immaterial and immortal 
soul cannot but be reprobated ; the belief of which, being 
opposed to Divine authority, and tending to the destruc- 
tion of a most valuable part of Revelation, has supplied 
the unbeliever with some of his most potent arguments 
against that system; but to such supporters of revelation, 
as may from old prejudices still adhere to the heathen hy- 
pothesis, the well-expressed advice of Bishop Law may 
be strongly recommended : " If you have hurt your own 
cause, and corrupted Christianity by an impure mixture 
of human wisdom, falsely so called, or by the dregs of 
heathen philosophy ; if you have disguised the face of it, 
or rather substituted something else in its room, and 
thereby put arms into the hands of infidels, which they 
have used but too successfully against us; — I ask whether 
it is not high time to examine our Bibles, and try to ex- 
hibit the true Christian plan as it is there delivered, and 
consider whether we may not surely rest upon that solid 
rock of a resurrection, without any of those visionary 
prospects which imagination is ever ready to furnish us 



BISHOP LAW. 125 

with : whether by this means we might not be able to 
move the seat of war into the enemy's quarters, till at 
length he sees the necessity for some superior guide, and 
sets himself in good earnest to seek after that light which 
came down from above, and ivhich alone can lead him to 
the light of everlasting life*}" 

* Postscript to Theory of Religion, p. 427, &c. 



J 26 



FASTS, FESTIVALS, SABBATHS. 

CHAPTER I. 

HEATHEN AND JEWISH FESTIVALS. 

" I pour out a flood of tears to think what human ceremonies have 
cost all mankind, and particularly what a price my native country has 
paid for them. "—Robert Robinson, of Cambridge. 

'* In the Christian Church no festival appears clearly to have been 
instituted, either by Jesus Christ or his Apostles." — John Robinson, of 
Westmoreland. 

The question as to the expediency of religious ceremonial 
observances, in relation to their effects upon society, has 
been debated with no ordinary zeal and ability, and as yet 
remains an entirely open subject, alike interesting to the 
theologian and the philosopher. The present remarks 
chiefly relate, not to their expediency, but to their history 
and authority, with the design of ascertaining whether any 
— and if any, which — are supported by Divine authority; 
making an obedience thereto binding in perpetuity upon 
all believers in that religion which, with incomparable elo- 
quence, was portrayed on Mars Hill as having, in contra- 
distinction to heathenism, for the exclusive object of its 
worship a God " that made the world and all things therein," 
and who, as " Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in 
temples made with hands, neither is worshiped with men's 
hands as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all 
life, and breath, and all things*." These doctrines of the 
distinguished Apostle thus formed a singular contrast to the 
* Acts xvii. 



FEASTS. 127 

religion of the philosophers, and admirably sustained the 
simplicity and the purity of that reverence, which had 
been declared of old to be of a mental and a spiritual cha- 
racter. "When ye come to appear before me, bring no 
more vain oblations 5 incense is an abomination unto me; 
the new moons and sabbaths, and your appointed feasts, 
my soul hateth *." Still we are called upon by the Christi- 
anity which is "part and parcel of the law of the land," 
to conform to institutions which in spirit but ill accord 
with the lamentations of the Prophet, or the subsequent 
authority of the Apostle. "How turn ye again to the 
weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to 
be in bondage ? Ye observe days, and months, and times, 
and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon 
you labour in vainf." 

Our ecclesiastical hierarchy, however, in its wisdom, and 
in "holy convocation," together with the king's majesty, 
"under God" as the supreme head of the church, spiri- 
tually and temporally, has resolved that we shall observe 
"times and seasons," and has made its allotments of fasts 
and of festivals. 

Fasts are days of religious abstinence, and have, either 
really or nominally, been observed in most ages and na- 
tions. The first recorded instance is in the time of Mo- 
ses, who enjoined a solemn day of expiation : this fast 
was instituted by Divine authority. The Jews had also 
other times of fasting, and of humiliation, such as "the 
fasts of the congregation;" all of which they observed 
with great strictness. Between fasting and abstinence 
the church of Rome drew a distinction, but the church 
of England has copied the fasts without this distinction ; 
indeed there is a statute which declares, that whoever, in 
preaching or writing, affirms it to be necessary on fast- 
* Isaiah i. f Galatians iv. 



128 FEASTS. 

days to abstain from flesh, for the purpose of saving the 
soul of man, is to be punished as a spreader of false news. 
Yet one of the homilies in the church Prayer Book, which 
homily was originally passed at the council of Chalcedon, 
declares — that withholding meat, drink, and all natural 
food from the body, during fasts, is " proper for Christian 
duty." How this injunction of the 630 holy fathers, of 
which the council was composed, was and is observed, 
might not unprofitably be adverted to. 

Feasts, among the heathen nations, were very nume- 
rous, and instituted on various occasions ; some of which 
were in honour of the gods, when they had conferred any 
signal favour ; and others in memory of particular indivi- 
duals : from these observances some of the feasts in the 
"reformed Christian calendar" are borrowed, even to very 
trifling points of detail, and they are treated by church 
writers as "holy days >" thus, in illustration, Christmas- 
day, Easter-day, and all Sundays are festivals, a festival 
being a church solemnity or rejoicing, in honour of God 
or of a saint ! 

In Nelson's Companion to the Fasts and Festivals of 
the Church of England, we learn that " festivals, or holy 
days, are set apart by the church" (not by Divine autho- 
rity) either for the remembrance of some special mercies 
of God, such as the Birth and Resurrection of Christ, 
the Descent of the Holy Ghost, &c; or in memory of 
the great heroes of the Christian religion, the blessed 
Apostles, and other saints. That they are of ecclesiasti- 
cal institution, agreeable to Scripture, in the general 
design of them, for the promoting of piety, and conso- 
nant to the practice of the primitive church." The primi- 
tive, it is presumed, can in this case only mean the papal 
church. By the 5th and 6th Edward VI., cap. 3, it appears, 
that the compilers of our Liturgy conceived that all festi- 






HOLY DAYS. 129 

vals were " to call men to remembrance of their duty ; 
and it hath been" (they say) " wholesomely provided that 
there should be some certain times and days appointed, 
wherein Christians should cease from all kinds of labour, 
and should apply themselves only and wholly to the afore- 
said holy works, properly pertaining unto true religion : 
the which times appointed for the same are called holy 
days, for godly and holy works wherewith only God is to 
be honoured." The days thus to be kept were Sundays, 
Christmas Day, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, the Purifi- 
cation, the Epiphany, the Holy Innocents, the Nativities 
of all the Apostles and "great church heroes," &c. These 
days, and " none others," were directed to be kept holy. 

This statute was afterwards repealed by Mary — con- 
tinued void throughout the long reign of Elizabeth, but 
was revived by James. Yet holy as these days (and "none 
others'') were enjoined to be kept, being exclusively for 
"godly and holy ivorks, wherewith God only was to be 
honoured/' we find that the appointed leaders to the paths 
of righteousness, the shepherds of the holy flocks, even in 
those times, were, upon Sundays and other holy days, cha- 
racterized by " posting over their services as fast as they 
could gallope ; for eyther they had two places to serve, or 
else there were some games to be playde in the afternoon ; 
as lying for the whetstone, heathenish dancing for the 
ring, a beare or a bull to be baited, or else a jackanapes 
to ride on horseback, or an interlude to be playde in the 
church*." 

The authority for the institution of these fasts and 
festivals, or holy days, is stated to be derived, not from 
that which can alone be of any real authority to the be- 
liever, namely their Divine appointment, but from the 

* See Introduction to Strutt's Sports and Pastimes of the People of 
England. 



ISO THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 

twentieth of the thirty- nine articles, which were agreed 
upon by the archbishops and bishops, in 1 562, " for the 
avoiding of diversity of opinion, and for the establishment 
of consent touching true religion." Passing by, in relation 
to these articles, the additions as well as curtailments 
which they underwent, and the heated controversies and 
recriminations, and mutual charges of forgery, which their 
arrangement engendered, it may be well merely to note the 
act of 1571 ; in which the thirty-nine articles are referred 
to as the articles of religion, in " an imprinted book" — 
" for avoiding diversities of opinion." A dispute has arisen 
upon these articles, as to where the "imprinted book" 
thus described, and upon which the act of parliament as- 
sumes to be framed, is. The fact being, that the book so 
quoted is held not to be in existence ; whilst in the manu- 
scripts of the thirty-nine articles w 7 hich have reached us, 
both in English and Latin, there are numberless various 
readings, some of which materially affect the sense of the 
text ; and one of the most important of these various read- 
ings is to be found in the twentieth article, the article which 
declares the power of the church to " decree rites or cere- 
monies," and gives it authority in controversies of faith. It 
is an unquestionable fact, says Mr. Robinson of Cambridge, 
"that the ceremonies and holy days of all the good people of 
the church of England were, among 117 priests, carried by 
a majority of one vote, and that given by proxy. Whether 
the absent member, who gave the casting vote, were talk- 
ing, or journeying, or hunting, or sleeping, is immaterial; 
he was the god almighty of this article of English religion, 
and his power decreed rites and ceremonies." But, ab- 
surd as the passing of the decree by the casting vote of an 
absent person may be, yet it must be esteemed to have 
been passed, and, so far, may be binding upon those who 
can sanction such authority ; and the fact appears to be, 



BISHOP LAUD. 131 

that a part of the debated article was not inserted at all in 
that copy of the articles which, in 16J1, received the sanc- 
tion of the legislature. Bishop Laud, on his trial, was 
accused of having fabricated it ; which, however, he de- 
nied ; still it did not form a part of the Articles as esta- 
blished by the 13th of Elizabeth, or as agreed to by the 
convocation of 1562 or 1571 *. And yet, with all this un- 
certainty as to the legitimacy of the article, and the entire 
absence of authority from the New Testament for any rite 
or ceremony whatever, the church of England proceeded to 
issue its decrees in support of the ceremonies of its heathen 
and catholic predecessors ; and even retained the lessons, 
as directed by the Catholic church, to be read on "holy 
days" for " godly discipline/' The Catholic arrangement 
too has been preserved, of making very numerous selections, 
not exclusively from the Old or New Testament, but from 
"Wisdom/* " Moses," and other apocryphal books. Yet 
so essential is a conformity to these ceremonies, thus 
derived, esteemed to be by the highest church authorities, 
that we are advertised in the Book of Common Prayer, 
that " the transgression of a common order and discipline 
is no small offence before God/' they being for "godly 
discipline, and such as be apt to stir up the dull mind of 
man to the remembrance of his duty to God, by some 
notable and special signification." We are also referred 
to the Jewish law, though it was declared by the highest 
authority that these institutions should only continue until 
they had fulfilled their destined object ; that the law, in- 
deed, came by Moses, but that grace and freedom came 
by Jesus Christ, the breaker down of the ceremonial wall, 
the proclaimer of the "perfect law of liberty" and that 

* See a pamphlet printed in 1710, called "Priestcraft in Perfec- 
tion ; or, a Detection of inserting and continuing this Clause in the Twen- 
tieth Article of the Articles of the Church of England." 

k2 



132 JEWISH CEREMONIES. 

the chosen of God were no longer under bondage being 
relieved from that yoke of ceremonial observances, which 
the Jews in the time of Jesus, in common with their fa- 
thers, had been hardly able to bear. 

Let us glance at the Jewish ceremonies, their authority 
and objects ; bearing in our recollection what are called 
the Christian ceremonies, with their authority and their 
objects. In the first place there was no Jewish fast, or 
feast, ever appointed in commemoration of the birth or 
death of any individual : eminent as particular men had 
been, as well in teaching as in delivering their nation from 
bondage, they had no days appointed for their remem- 
brance ; nor did they, with all their tendency towards su- 
perstitious observances, honour with the title of saints — 
Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob : to act on the principles, and 
to imitate the example of these great though uncanonized 
patriarchs being esteemed, in those days, at least as effec- 
tive "in godly discipline' ' as the strictest observance of 
all the days in the calendar can be regarded in the present. 
Besides which, the Jewish institutions were of a practically 
moral character — called for, even, by their former super- 
stitions, by the want of knowledge incident to the age in 
which they lived, and the circumstances in which they 
were so peculiarly placed ; and designed apparently, by 
means adapted to the then comparative infancy of civili- 
zation, to divert the minds of the people from heathen im- 
purities and superstitious observances, by connecting the 
gratification of their senses with the inculcation of moral 
truths, of a constant remembrance of their past situation, 
of the God who had delivered them from slavery, and who 
continued to afford them favour and protection ; and to keep 
in remembrance the unity of God, and the benevolence of 
his government, as demonstrated in all the Divine conduct 
towards their nation. Thus the Passover was connected 



JEWISH CEREMONIES. 133 

with their past sojourn in Egypt, and their miraculous de- 
liverance therefrom. The Feast of Pentecost, was instituted 
to oblige the Israelites to repair to the temple of the Lord, 
and acknowledge his dominion over them ; and also to 
render thanks to God, for his having given the law to Moses 
on Mount Sinai. The Feast of Tabernacles, at which the 
whole of the nation attended in the temple, and dwelt under 
tents of leaves, was to remind them that their fathers had 
dwelt forty years in tents, as wanderers in the wilderness. 

With these, in common with other minor ceremonies, 
the miraculous events in the Jewish history were com- 
pletely interwoven ; and being so, the importance of a strict 
and perfect observance of them became essential ; and a 
reference to the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, 
will prove their admirable fitness to the existing condition 
of the particular nation upon whom these observances were 
enjoined, and the essentially moral and enlightened objects 
with which they were combined. But, although the Is- 
raelites did not appoint days in commemoration of their 
really eminent men — their u heroes," the Christians, in 
after times were careful to supply such deficiency : one of 
the reasons given for the establishment of Advent, or the 
forty days' fast prior to what is styled the u coming of 
Christ/' being — that " it was instituted in honour of the 
fast of Moses, as that of Lent was in honour of the fast 
of Christ ; and that as Moses, by a fast of forty days up- 
on the mount, was prepared to receive the two tables of 
the law from God, so it is incumbent upon Christians to 
prepare themselves, by a like abstinence, for the reception 
of the eternal Word, the true and great lawgiver coming in 
the flesh*." 

The church which "decrees rites and ceremonies" in- 

* See Shepherd's Elucidation of the Rites and Ceremonies of the 
Churches of England and Ireland, 1801. 



134 THE RIVAL MISSALS. 

stituted a forty days' fast, in honour of an event, of which 
the individuals immediately concerned took no such espe- 
cial cognizance ; — but even if there had been such a fast 
among the Jews, unless it had been commanded to be con- 
tinued by Jesus, those who observe it would, to the extent 
of this ceremony, constitute themselves Jews, not Chris- 
tians; and then, indeed, they must really "fast-" not as 
by the present mode, in which even the most rigid of the 
saints are permitted the "free use of oil, of wine, and of 
all sorts of fish." The season for observing this last fast, 
which we are told is "incumbent upon Christians," was, 
like Christmas, among the holy fathers, subject to con- 
siderable variations ; and some hot disputes arose in con- 
sequence, as the Missals of Ambrose and Gregory materi- 
ally differed in relation to it. The Church, therefore, being 
resolved to decide the controversy, appealed to a miracle. 
The two Missals were laid upon the altar of the cathedral 
of Milan, the church doors shut and sealed ; in the morn- 
ing Gregory's Missal was found torn in pieces, and Am- 
brose's placed upon the altar in a position of being read : 
this might have appeared final against poor Gregory, — but 
a power behind the altar, greater than the altar itself, 
sagely decided that Gregory's Missal being torn and scat- 
tered about, it should be used all over the world, and Am- 
brose's only in the church of Milan ! 

In looking at the two codes of ceremonies in question, 
and without running a parallel between them — without 
even glancing at the divinely appointed and really moral 
character of the Jewish, and at the Pagan original and im- 
moral character of parts of the English church calendar — 
without observing that the one had time, place, season, and 
object distinctly set forth; and that the other, which may 
be (according to the Book of Common Prayer) "varied ac- 
cording to the various exigencies of times and occasions" 



FESTIVALS. 135 

— without referring to the authority of the one, which had 
God for its institutor — and of the other, which rests on a 
claim of the " church," by act of parliament, to "decree 
rites and ceremonies," — it may be submitted that, separate 
and apart from any of these considerations, the church 
calendar does not possess an adequate claim upon our 
attention; seeing that any ceremony, be it a fast or a 
festival, cannot now be binding upon believers, unless dis- 
tinctly and positively appointed — not by Moses — but by 
Jesus. And, upon looking to this latter source, to him 
who alone can be the Gospel lawgiver, it will be seen, that 
his mission was to destroy those " shadows of things that 
were to come;" that the whole spirit and genius of his 
religion were opposed to ceremonial observances; and also 
that the great follower in his footsteps, the apostle Paul, 
expresses alarm for those who had evinced a taste for their 
former " bondage," from which they had been delivered by 
having " known God, or rather are known of God : how 
then " (says Paul) "turn ye again to the weak and beggarly 
elements of this world?" 

The moral value of religious festivals may be best esti- 
mated by a reference to the ancient, as well as modern, 
authorized practices and observances appointed for such 
occasions. Though, if these facts did not exist, it would 
still be difficult to discover how, in the language of the 
Book of Common Prayer, the "dull mind of man could be 
stirred up to a remembrance of his duty to God," by 
an observance, for example, of the Ember days, the 
three Rogation days, the days of the Holy Innocents, 
the Nativity — with the accompanying vigils — of Jesus 
and his Apostles, the Purification of the Virgin, or the 
forty days of Lent : except indeed, in regard to the latter, 
virtue can be extracted from an act of parliament passed 
in 1549, in which we are apprised, "That though all days 



136 CHARLES BUTLER. 

and meats are in themselves alike, yet fasting being a great 
help to virtue, and to the subduing of the body to the 
mind : therefore all persons, excepting the weak, or those 
that have the king's license, shall, under several penal- 
ties, fast; yet a distinction of meats being conducive to 
the advancement of the fishing trade, be it enacted that 
Lent, and all Saturdays, and Fridays, and Ember days, 
shall be fish days." Neither can much of religious truth be 
discovered, which should cause "the dull mind of man" 
to venerate the Deity, in the instructions given in con- 
nexion with the festival of the "holy virgin," in which 
she is styled "the empress of heaven," "the queen of 
heaven," "the lady of the universe," "the only hope of 
sinners," and where she is called upon "to command God 
her son to forgive those which he had forgotten ," but now 
remembered, — not for their, but for her sake. Although 
the church of England may not fairly be chargeable, in its 
festival dedicated to the Virgin, with blasphemy to the full 
extent of that above stated, yet the difference is one of de- 
gree, not of kind ; for, in regard to its festivals, in com- 
mon with every other part of its establishment, the ap- 
proach to its great prototype is so close, and the union in 
principle so perfect, that it is most justly complimented by 
Butler, the modern and liberal Roman Catholic writer, in 
his article on the Church of France, in the following unqua- 
lified manner : " Of all Protestant churches the national 
church of England most nearly resembles the church of 
Rome, It has retained much of her dogma, and much of 
her discipline. Down to the sub- deacon it has retained 
the whole of her hierarchy ; and, like her, has deans, chap- 
ters, prebends, archdeacons, rectors, and vicars ; a liturgy 
taken in a great measure from the Catholic, and com 
posed like it of psalms, canticles, the three creeds, litanies, 
epistles, gospels, prayers, and responses. Both churches 



THE CALENDAR. 13/ 

have the sacraments of baptism and the eucharist; the 
absolution of the sick, the burial service, the sign of the 
cross in baptism, the reservation of confirmation and order 
to bishops, the different episcopal and sacerdotal dress, 
the organ, a cathedral service, feasts and fasts. Without 
adopting all the general councils of the church of Rome^ the 
church of England has adopted the first three of them ; and 
without acknowledging the authority of the other councils, 
or the authority of the fathers, the English divines of the 
established church allow, that the early councils and early 
fathers are entitled to a high degree of respect *." 

Such approbation from a Catholic writer must be rather 
humiliating to that class of churchmen who shudder at the 
very name of popery. It is, however, well merited ; and 
both churches have proved themselves not indolent imitators 
of their heathen instructors ; the contents of the calendar 
supplying as it does ample evidence of its partially heathen 
original. The calendar, or /calendar, from calendarium, 
was invented by Numa, for making known to his subjects 
all matters relative to their feasts or ceremonies. The 
" Christian Calendar 3 ' of the Church of England consists 
of the following days; which Nelson, in his Companion 
to the Fasts and Festivals of the Church of England, 
asserts are designed to " improve the holy seasons to 
the advantage of our souls/' They are divided into two 
classes. First, Of those which are moveable, and there- 
fore dependent upon Easter, there are eight. Secondly, 
Of immoveable feasts there are eighty-one. Besides these, 
there are of vigils, fasts, and days of abstinence seventy- 
one; together with all the Fridays in the year, and "four 
certain solemn days for particular services;" two of which 
are appropriated to that pious explosion, the gunpowder 
plot, and to the memory of our saint Charles I., whose 

* The Philological and Biographical Works of Charles Butler, vol. 5. 



138 CHRISTMAS DAY. 

death is somewhat oddly termed a "martyrdom;" — making 
altogether 216 days; being more than half the year set 
apart by the law of the land, and by the solemn injunctions 
of the Book of Common Prayer, for religious observance, 
— to disregard which we are apprised " is no small offence 
before God." 

As it might be tedious, and perhaps unprofitable, to 
trace up in detail this mass of ceremonial observances, it 
may be well to confine ourselves to a few of the more pro- 
minent days and seasons. 

The "Feast of the Nativity," or Christmas Day, is 
now held in Europe on the 25th December, in honour 
of the birth of Jesus ; upon which day we are instructed, 
by the highest church authorities, to have in our minds 
"great admiration of God," — "great thankfulness to the 
blessed Jesus for consenting to be born on this day." 
yet we do not find that " Christ's nativity" was a matter 
ever referred to by Jesus himself*; we may safely infer, 
indeed, that it was an event never celebrated during his 
life, or after his resurrection, by his personal friends, by 
his apostles, or by the first believers : — the second century 
is deemed to have given birth to this "great festival" a 
period in church history in which little of the Gospel re- 
mained, it having been corrupted by and amalgamated 
with heathenism. The day of the birth of the Messiah, 

* The two first chapters of Matthew, and of Luke, in which such 
obscene and contradictory statements are made concerning the birth 
of Jesus, are held to be spurious: see Pope on the Miraculous 
Conception; Lardner's Works, vol. 1; Dr. Williams' Free Inquiry; 
Priestley's Early Opinions; Evanson's Dissonance; the Improved 
Version of the New Testament; and the FreethinJcing Christians' 
Magazine for 1814. All, indeed, that we know of the commencement 
of the public life of Jesus, and of his age, is that the holy spirit de- 
scended upon him — that a voice from heaven proclaimed him to be the 
well-beloved son of God ; and that at this time " Jesus himself began 
to be about thirty years of age, being the son of Joseph." Luke iii. 23. 



CHRISTMAS DAY. 139 

too, has been a matter of much laborious investigation, 
and not altogether without cause ; for chronological accu- 
racy with a church which " decrees rites and ceremonies," 
is supposed to aid and confirm its institutions; hence the 
anxiety to give to the 25th day of December the honour of 
the "Nativity." Nelson labours to remove the difficulties 
which encumber this point, by asserting that et Jesus' birth- 
day was a great festival in the primitive" (i.e. of course the 
Roman Catholic) church : though we have no certain evi- 
dence of the exact time which was observed, the 25th De- 
cember, there is little doubt, is the very day, though if the 
day were mistaken, it will be pardonable in those ivho think 
they are not mistaken*." That mistakes or inconsisten- 
cies either do, or have existed, even in England, is un- 
questionable; the alteration of the style alone might pro- 
duce such. The Eastern and Western churches have never 
agreed upon " the very day" the former keeping it on the 
5th January, the latter on the 25th December; though not 
always consistent even to that date, there being variations 
in the Western churches from the 20th to the 25th De- 
cember. There were other churches who celebrated this 
"very day" in April — others in May; and the Greek 
church now observe Christmas in February. There is 
a learned and laboured work, written by a clergyman of 
that diocese (Peterborough) which, in our own times, 
has been blessed with an orthodox and an immaculate 
bishop, the title of which is expressive of its character, 
and of the importance too which is attached to pre- 
cision relative to the birth of Jesus; it is, "A Brief but 
True Account of the certain Year, Month and Day of 
the Birth of Jesus Christ." And this inquiry results in 
proving the day to be the 25th December: but, in despite 

* Nelson's Companion to the Fasts and Festivals of the Church of 
England, p. 53. 



140 CHRISTMAS DAY. 

of all this learning, and this "true account" of the 
" certain day," it is admitted by Sir Isaac Newton, by 
Shepherd, and yet more strongly by Brady, in his 
Clavis Calendaria that " there are not any certain 
traditions about the years of Christ." (See Newton on 
Daniel.) " The day of our Lord's Nativity, it is now 
settled beyond all dispute, by arguments incontroverti- 
ble, did not take place on the 25th December/' (Brady, 
vol. ii. p. 330.) 

These observances have been alternately instituted and 
abrogated by human authority, and in compliance with 
human interest or human caprice. The laws of morality 
remain unchanged in all ages; the commands of God, for 
any institution, may, at any time, be referred to as a 
standard ; but how can we be safe, if at one time men in 
authority can order the observance of days, and at another, 
time their non-observance; if we are here directed to ob- 
serve one period, and there compelled to regard another, 
as sacred to the same object ? Yet such are the inconsis- 
tencies which the history of feasts and fasts frequently 
presents us with. In the earlier ages many doubtless did 
not observe these times and seasons ; yet Christmas is 
described, by Chrysostom, as a festival " renowned far 
and wide, from Thrace even to Cadiz, as of all festivals 
the most venerable — the mother and metropolis of the 
rest." And although the good people of this country are 
now commanded by those "in authority " to keep this day 
holy, they were, during the Commonwealth, commanded 
also, from the "authority" then existing, to "put down 
Christmas Day, and all other superstitious festivals;" each 
command being equally " part and parcel of the law of 
the land," equally binding upon all pious and loyal sub- 
jects, and in an equal degree essential to " stir up the dull 
mind of man" to the performance of his duties. It is, at 



CHRISTMAS DAY. 



141 



this time, our duty, according to our Christian lawgivers, 
to maintain a veneration for this festival; but precisely 
the contrary was, at one time, binding upon our ances- 
tors. A scarce tract, published in 1648, informs us that 
on " Wednesday, December 22, 1647, the crier of Canter- 
bury, by the appointment of Master Maior, openly pro- 
claimed that Christmas Day, and all other superstitious 
festivals should be put down, and that a market should 
be kept on Christmas Day." And among the single sheets 
preserved in the British Museum, is an order of parliament, 
December 24, 1652, directing "that no observation shall 
be had of the five-and-twentieth day of December, com- 
monly called Christmas Day; nor any solemnity used or 
exercised in churches upon that day in respect thereof *." 
Leaving the observers of this festival to settle their own 
differences, it may be well to proceed to trace the source 
from whence an observance of Christmas may have been 
derived; and this source appears to be two-fold; the first, 
a festival held in Pagan Rome; the other held sacred by 
the several Northern European nations ; and as both oc- 
curred at the same season of the year, they appear to have 
been naturalized by the Roman Catholic church, and en- 
titled the Mass of Christ, under the plea of commemora- 
ting the birth of Jesus. 

The mass of Christ was the mass or eucharist celebrated 
on the assumed birthday of Christ. To make religion bend 
to the Pagan prejudices of the people, is an invariable fea- 
ture in the records of ecclesiastical history. The heathens, 
even more than the Jews, were averse to the simplicity of 
the Christian religion; and with the view to their national 
conversion — not from vice and the practice of abomina- 
ble rites — hardly even from the objects of their worship, — 
a project was formed, in the third century, for the purpose 

* See Brand's Popular Antiquities, vol. i. 



142 THE NORTHERN NATIONS. 

of permitting the new converts to Christianity to observe 
the festivals of the countries in which they resided, sub- 
ject to one most remarkable condition : that, "instead of 
celebrating those days to the honour and in the name of 
heathen gods, they should dedicate them, and reckon them 
all sacred to the memory of some martyr or Christian 
saint ;" for it was argued that " the simple and unskilled 
multitude, by reason of corporeal delights, remained in 
the error of idols ; in order, therefore, that the ( principal 
thing ' might be corrected in them, and that, instead of 
their own vain worship, they should turn their eyes upon 
God, they were to be permitted at the memories of holy 
martyrs to make merry, and to delight themselves, and he 
dissolved into joy*." These " pious " and " devout" in- 
structions would seem to have met with the most ample 
success among our heathen ancestors; who, when they 
offered human and other sacrifices to the god Odin, con- 
cluded the ceremony with drinking the healths of their 
several gods. This custom the Christian missioiiaries 
could not or would not abolish ; and therefore they in- 
corporated it with their religious ceremonies, directing 
that instead of Odin, Niord, and Brage, their converts 
should drink the health of the saints, of Jesus, and of 
God ! And, in after times, we learn from Bede, that Pope 
Gregory, in his letter to Militus, thus instructs him : 
" Whereas the people were accustomed to sacrifice many 
oxen in honour of demons, let them celebrate a religious 
and solemn festival, and not slay the animals to the de- 
vil, but eat them themselves, to the praise of God!!!" 
It also appears that St. Augustine and forty other monks 
were dispatched by Gregory to erect temples to the wor- 
ship of God in our island; in which project their adop- 
tion of the Pagan practices mainly caused them to be 

* See Mallett's Northern Antiquities. 



LAUD. ALTARS. 143 

successful. The heathen temples, with their altars, were 
left standing entire, but were appropriated to the new 
religion, and continued so to the period of the Protestant 
reformation, when these altars were taken down and de- 
stroyed. So attached, however, were the "simple and 
unskilled multitude," and the artful and well-skilled 
priesthood, to what had been the establishments of Ca- 
tholicism, that Archbishop Laud and others succeeded 
in re-establishing altars, and the ceremonies connected 
therewith, in the Protestant churches; and not only in 
our own country, but also on the continent, the pros- 
tration of all principle was most complete, not merely to 
the heathen feasts, but likewise to the minor prejudices 
and habits of Paganism*. The pastimes too, and sports 
of the English and other northern nations, afford proof in 
illustration. The wakes were attempted to be converted 
into religious institutions, in resemblance of the agappce, 
or love-feasts of the first Christians ; and such were held 
upon the day of the dedication of the church in each 
district, or the birthday of the saint whose relics were 
therein deposited ; and at these the people were directed 
by Edgar "to pray devoutly, and not to betake them- 
selves, as when they tvere heathens, to drunkenness and 
debauchery : " but it was found in practice impossible 
strictly to keep the new converts to any observance in 
which their appetites and passions were not the chief 
object of gratification ; and therefore " the pepal fell to 

* The Thracians, the Celts, and the other barbarous tribes settled 
in Europe, held in contempt every occupation except that of bearing 
arms ; their priests utterly forbade them the use of letters, pretending 
that their doctrines were only for the initiated ; and so religiously had 
this prohibition of the priesthood been observed, that the Saxons, under 
Louis le Debonnaire, persisted in their resolution of not learning to read, 
when he, to accommodate them, had the Old and New Testaments 
turned into verse : they then willingly sttw^them, after theirown manner. 



144 WAKES. 

letcherie, and songs, and dances, and to glotony and sinne, 
and so turned holyness to cursydness ; whereof the holy 
faders ordained the pepal to leve that waking and to fast 
the evyn which is called vigilia." And in proportion as 
these festivals regained their old character, they increased 
in popularity; the people flocked together, and the greater 
the reputation of the tutelary saint, the larger was the as- 
sembly. Hawkers and pedlars attended, and by degrees 
the religious wake became a secular fair. From these 
wakes originated the church ales; for the parish officers 
finding that at Christmas the wakes drew together a larger 
number than upon any other holy days, they, together with 
the priest, turned them to the account of profit, by collect- 
ing money from them, for the support and repairs of the 
church; and, by way of enticement, there was brewed 
ready for the festival a quantity of strong ale, so that in 
the churches debauchery and excess of the worst kinds 
were patronized under the sanction of Christmas and 
other holy days; for when "this huffe cappe — this nectar 
of life — is set abroach, well is he that can get the soonest 
to it, where drunken Bacchus bears sway against Christ- 
mas, and Easter, and Whitsuntide ; and when he that 
spends the most at it, is counted the godliest man of all 
the rest, and most in God's favour, because it ts spent 
in the church ! They bestow that money which is got 
thereby for the repair of their churches and chapels, books 
for the service of God, cups for the celebration of the sa- 
crament, surplices for Sir John, and other necessaries*." 
The names too, as is well known, of our months and 
days are themselves evidence of their heathen original : 
thus January, from the Latin Januarius, in honour of 
Janus, a heathen god selected by Numa to preside over the 
year : who was thence represented with two faces, — one the 

* Strutt's Sports and Pastimes of the People of England, p. 325. 



LATIMER. HENRY VIII. 145 

old, expressive of his past experience ; the other the new, 
looking to the coming year. The first of this month was 
kept by the heathens as a day of extreme rejoicing, upon 
which they sacrificed to their god Janus, and indulged in 
every excess. The Christians first held it as a fast to di- 
stinguish themselves from the heathen ; but it was after- 
wards conveniently transformed into a pious festival, in 
commemoration "of the circumcision of our Lord Jesus 
Christ; who, when eight days old, subjected himself to 
this law, and first shed his sacred blood for us" ! ! ! The 
heathens by whole nations became Christians, but yet 
retained their old profanations, and only exchanged the 
name by which such ceremonies were recognised. The mi- 
nor and even the unobjectionable customs of the heathen 
nations received the colour of Christianity; and thus new 
year's gifts, which were carried to a great extent in pa- 
gan Rome, became in England, as elsewhere, nationalized, 
and assumed a religious character ; upon the first day of 
the year also, truths could be communicated even to the 
monarch, which, at any other time, would have endangered 
the life of the party. Thus Bishop Latimer is related to 
have sent as a new year's gift to Henry VIII. this appro- 
priate present — a New Testament, richly illuminated, with 
an inscription on its cover — " Fornicators and Adulterers 
cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven" ! ! ! — a gift, 
provided a Bishop Latimer could have been found to pre- 
sent it, which might not have been without its use or ap- 
plicability in days not long gone by. 

February, from Februalis, one of the names of Juno. 
The second day of this month the heathens kept as a festi- 
val, on which sacrifices for the souls of their ancestors were 
offered to Pluto; and the Church of England has appointed 
the second of February as a festival-day, dedicated, not to 
the infernal deity, but to "the Purification of the Blessed 



146 EASTER. 

Virgin." The Church commentators inform us that the 
peculiar advantage of this festival is its " being the pro- 
perest and most necessary season to receive the impres- 
sion of piety and virtue; " and they add — impiously add 
— that "so it is then most acceptable to God*" 

Easter, a feast of the Church held in commemoration 
of the resurrection of Jesus; the derivation of which is 
also mainly heathen, as well in the character of its obser- 
vances as in the more palpable import of its title, — from 
JEastre, a heathen goddess, whose festival was observed in 
the month of April with great pomp and circumstance. 
From the second to the fourth centuries the Western and 
Eastern Churches fiercely disputed the fitting season for 
its observance ; but at length the Nicene Council termi- 
nated the controversy, by commanding all to adopt the 
practice of the Western Church : and the same Council 
also decreed, that, as the Passover was held by the Jews 
on the day of the new moon, Easter should not be ob- 
served at the same time, but on the Sunday succeeding the 
full moon following the 21st of March. 

Among the Northern nations there were three great re- 
ligious festivals ; the first of which was celebrated at the 
winter solstice, and was called, by pre-eminence, the 
"Mother Night" it being the longest, and, as was stated, 
the night upon which the world was created. The second 
was held in honour of the Earth, or the goddess Frigga, 
to request of her pleasures, fruitfulness, and victory. The 
third, in honour of Odin, was celebrated at the commence- 
ment of Spring. But of these several institutions, the 
Mother Night took the pre-eminence, as from it was 
dated the commencement of the year, which was computed 
from one winter solstice to another. It was held as a 
feast, celebrated in honour of T/wr; and, in order to ob- 
* Nelson. 



YULE. 147 

tain fruitful seasons and a propitious year, sacrifices, feast- 
ing, dances, nocturnal assemblies, and all the demonstra- 
tions of dissolute joy, were then practised by the North- 
ern nations. The name of this festival was Yule, or Jule; 
and it is a remarkable fact that this term, or some other 
springing therefrom, is even now used in parts of En- 
gland, and also on the Continent, as expressive of the 
nativity of Christ. In Sweden and Norway, particu- 
larly, the old word is retained ; in France it is con- 
verted into Noel, and in our own country into Yule- 
tide. The Yule clog, Yule dough, and other minor Christ- 
inas customs, may be deemed to be illustrative of the 
heathen character of Christmas and most of its attend- 
ant observances. When Paganism gave place to what 
was styled Christianity, the priests tolerated many of the 
ancient pastimes, and not only authorized a feast at the 
winter solstice, which they changed to the honour of 
the "Nativity," from that of the pagan god Thor, but 
actually, in this instance, and contrary to their general 
practice, suffered this feast to retain its original pagan 
appellation of Yule-tide, which " by progressive degrees 
became synonymous with that of Christmas, though re- 
tained only among the vulgar, who soon forgot its primi- 
tive signification *.." In conformity with this species of 
conversion, the old practice in this country of lighting up 
churches on Christmas Eve was borrowed from a heathen 
ceremony at Yule-tide, or the feast of Thor, a deity ty- 
pified as the Sun; but "the Fathers" represented this 
practice as the "Light" which was about to be born into 
the world. In the North of England Yule songs are still 
sung, whilst elsewhere the priests substituted others, bear- 
ing a reference to the "Nativity," and which are the cha- 
racteristic "Christmas Carols." Some authorities, how- 
* Calendaria, vol. ii. p. 345. 

l2 



148 CHRISTMAS CAROLS. 

ever, gravely asserted that Angels first introduced the cus- 
tom of singing these "divine" songs at "the Nativity of 
our Lord"', in order, however, that these compositions 
may fairly be compared with poetry of merely a human 
character, take the following specimen from Davies Gil- 
bert's collection, and which were set to music*. 

I. 

A virgin most pure, as the prophets do tell, 
Has brought forth a baby, as it hath befell, 
To be our Redeemer from death, hell, and sin, 
Which Adam's transgressions had wrapped us in. 
Chorus. 

Aye, and therefore be you merry, 

Rejoice and be you merry ; 

Set sorrow aside, 

Christ Jesus our Saviour was born on this tide. 

II. 

In Bethlehem, in Jewry, a city there was, 
Where Joseph and Mary together did pass ; 
And there to be taxed with many a one mo', 
For Caesar commanded the same should be so. 

Aye, and therefore be you merry, &c. 

III. 

But when they had entered the city so fair, 

A number of people so mighty was there, 

That Joseph and Mary, whose substance was small, 

Could find in the inn there no lodging at all. 

Aye, and therefore be you merry, &c. 

IV. 

Then were they constrained in a stable to lye, 
Where horses and asses they used for to tie ; 
Their lodging so simple they took it no scorn, 
But against the next morning our Saviour was born. 

Aye, and therefore be you merry, &c. 

* Ancient Christmas Carols, with the Tunes to which they were formerly 
sung in the West of England. 



ROMANS.— SATURNALIA. 149 

V. 

The King of all Kings to this world being brought, 
Small store of fine linen to wrap him was sought ; 
And when she had swaddled her young son so sweet, 
Within an ox manger she laid him to sleep. 

Aye, and therefore be you merry, &c. 

VI. 

Then God sent an angel from heaven so high, 
To certain poor shepherds in fields where they lye, 
And bade them no longer in sorrow to stay, 
Because that our Saviour was born on this day. 

Aye, and therefore be you merry, &c. 

VII. 

Then presently after the shepherds did spy 
A number of angels that stood in the sky ; 
They joyfully talked and sweetly did sing — 
** To God be all glory — our heavenly king." 

Aye, and therefore be you merry, 

Rejoice and be you merry ; 

Set sorrow aside, 

Christ Jesus our Saviour was born on this tide. 

On Christmas Day these Carols took the place of Psalms 
in the churches, especially at afternoon service, the whole 
congregation joining ; and at the end the parish-clerk de- 
clared, in a loud voice, his wishes for a merry Christmas 
and happy new year to all the assembly. 

With the Romans the feast in honour of Saturn was the 
most esteemed, and during its celebration all classes gave 
themselves up to mirth and feasting : — friends sent pre- 
sents to each other ; masters treated their slaves upon an 
equal footing ; schools kept holiday; and the senate did 
not sit. At first it was held but for one day, and that on 
the 19th of December; afterwards for three days; and, by 
the order of Caligula, for five days ; two days were then 
added, (bringing the ceremonies up to the 26th of Decem- 
ber,) and called " Sigillaria," from small images, which 



150 THE SATURNALIA. 

were sent as presents by parents to their children, — a 
custom which may illustrate the Christian practice on the 
day of the " Holy Innocents/' which immediately succeeds 
Christmas -Day. At the Saturnalia, and at the feast of 
Bacchus, held about the same season, all restraints were 
removed from every rank of society, and the whole people 
wantoned in the indulgence of sensual gratification. Bac- 
chus was represented as a boy, and it is probable that, with 
a view of preserving to the people their accustomed idea 
of a child, this period was preferred as the commemora- 
tion of the nativity of Jesus ; and the whole festive season, 
with all its impurities — instead of being any longer, as 
among our ancestors, the feast of Yule, or, as with the 
Romans, the "Saturnalia" — was reformed; not in sub- 
stance, not in manners, not in morals, but in name merely; 
being transformed into a sacred feast in honour of the 
birth of Jesus. The reasons for those monstrous and 
blasphemous, though it must be allowed very character- 
istic, proceedings, are obvious ; transferring, as they did, 
to a national religious Establishment nearly all the power 
and profit which could be derived from encouraging, under 
the sacred name of religion, even the grossest ignorance, 
and the lowest vices of mankind. The heathen origin of 
Christmas is so palpable, that some of the early Church 
writers have not been backward even in defending the 
fact; and in Brand* there is given a portion of a very 
rare tract, from which it appears, that in 1648 Thomas 
Warmsley, D.D. wrote a " Vindication of the Solemnity 
of the Nativity of Christ" in answer to the following 
questions : Whether this feast had not its rise and growth 
from Christians' conformity to the mad feasts of Satur- 
nalia, (kept in December, to Saturn the father of the 
Gods,) in which there was a sheaf offered to Ceres, god- 

* Popular Antiquities. 



CHRISTMAS. 151 

dess of corn, and a hymn to her praise ? and, Whether 
those Christians by name, to cloak it, did not after- 
wards call it Yule and Christmas, as though it were for 
Christ's honour? and, Whether it be not yet called Yule, 
and the mad plays wherewith it is celebrated, like those 
Saturnalia, are they not our Yule games ? and, Whether, 
from the gifts of the heathens to their friends on the calen- 
dar of January, did not arise our new year's gifts ? To 
these questions the Rev. Doctor, in the above-mentioned 
Work, makes a reply which, like many other replies, tends 
— not to the refutation, but to the confirmation of the 
charge. What, (he argues,) if it should appear that the 
time of this festival doth comply with the time of the 
heathen Saturnalia, — this leaves no charge of impiety 
upon it! " for, since things are best cured by contraries, 
it was both wisdom and piety in the ancient Christians, 
whose work it was to convert the heathen from such, as 
well as other superstitions and miscarriages, to vindicate 
such times from that service of the devil, by appointing 
the same to the more solemn and especial service of God.' 9 
"Christmas Carols," he observes, "if used with Christian 
piety, may be profitable, if they be sung with grace in the 
heart I New year's gifts, if performed without superstition, 
may be harmless provocations to Christian love"! As it 
was the custom to present these gifts to the clergy, and 
the author of the objections was also a clergyman, he is 
thus rather acutely advised by the more prudent Doctor : 
— "Trouble not yourself : if you dislike new year's gifts, 
I would advise your parishioners not to trouble your con- 
science with them, and all will be well again. " 

During the Roman Saturnalia, slaves were not merely 
put by their masters on an equality with themselves, but 
their masters occasionally waited upon them, honouring 
them with mock titles, and permitting them to assume 



152 FESTIVAL OF FOOLS. 

their own state and deportment. Even this practice was 
transferred to our Christmas ceremonies ; thus the society- 
belonging to Lincoln's Inn had anciently an officer who 
was honoured with the mock title of "King of Christmas/' 
and he presided in the hall upon that day : this tempo- 
rary potentate had a marshal and a steward to attend up- 
on him. Upon Childermas Day there was another officer, 
denominated the " King of the Cockneys/' The " King 
of the Bean/' too, was chosen upon the vigil of the Epi- 
phany; and at the Court of Edward III. the King's title 
was conferred, during this festive season, upon His Ma- 
jesty's trumpeter, — an exchange, perhaps, that kings might 
often make without disadvantage, at least, to their sub- 
jects ; all these transpositions at Christmas being de- 
rived, according to Selden, " from the ancient Saturnalia, 
or feast of Saturn." These fooleries were exceedingly 
popular, and were practised in defiance, at first, of the 
threatenings and remonstrances of some of the clergy; but 
this accommodating class of men, finding it desirable to 
follow the stream of vulgar prejudice, eventually satisfied 
themselves with changing merely the titles of their reli- 
gious ceremonies, so that the same unhallowed orgies which 
had disgraced the worship of a heathen deity, were now 
dedicated to the service of the Almighty, and deemed to be 
divinely appointed rites. 

From this stock branched out a variety of unseemly and 
immoral sports, but none of them more outrageous than 
the one entitled the "Festival of Fools," which, at the 
festive seasons, formed a part of "divine service" — when 
rites and ceremonies, pretending to be of the most sacred 
character, were turned into ridicule, the priests them- 
selves participating in the degrading exhibitions. In each 
of the cathedral churches there was elected, at such pe- 
riods, a "Bishop, or Archbishop of Fools"; and in the 



THE NATIVITY. 



153 



churches immediately dependent upon the Papal See, a 
" Pope of Fools ' ' . These mock pontiffs had a suite of eccle- 
siastics to attend upon, and assist at, what they impiously 
called "divine service"; and, attired in the dresses of play- 
ers and buffoons, as was the custom in the heathen solem- 
nities, they were accompanied by crowds of the laity, some 
disguised with masks, and others dressed as females, in 
which garb they imitated the manners and the behaviour 
of the lowest and most abandoned classes of society. 

During such "divine service," this motley group both of 
clergy and laity assembled in church : some of them sang 
indecent songs in the choir; others ate; others drank; 
others played at dice upon the altar, by the side of the 
priest whilst celebrating Mass. And after such "solem- 
nities" they ran about the church, leaping, dancing, and 
exposing themselves in the most unseemly attitudes, as 
had been the practice in honour of the heathen deities. 
Another part of the ceremony in remembrance of the 
" nativity of our Lord," was to shave the "Precentor of 
Fools" upon a stage erected before the church door; and 
during the operation his office was to amuse the popu- 
lace with lewd and vulgar discourses. The " Pope of 
Fools" performed "divine service," habited (not inappro- 
priately) in the pontifical garments ; and, thus attired, 
gave his benediction to the people. He was afterwards 
drawn in an open carriage, attended by a train of eccle- 
siastics and laymen, promiscuously mingled together; 
and many of the most profligate of the latter assumed 
clerical habits, in order to give " their impious fooleries 
the greater effect*" In the fourteenth century, at this 
season, we had the "King of Fools"; and the election and 
investment of the "Boy Bishop" appears to have been de- 
rived from the Festival of Fools : the whole affording a sin- 

* See Strutt's Sports and Pastimes. 



154 PIOUS OXEN. 

gularly effective comment on the Rev. Doctor's " Vindica- 
tion of the Solemnity of the Nativity of Christ" and well 
displaying "the wisdom and piety of the ancient Christians 
in working by contraries, to convert the heathen from su- 
perstition, and vindicate such times, by appointing them 
to the solemn service of God." But if the " wisdom and 
piety" of these parties failed in their experiments upon 
the human species, it would appear that they were more 
successful with the brute creation; in attestation of which, 
let the following statement satisfy the most sceptical : " A 
superstitious notion prevails in the western parts of De- 
vonshire, that at twelve o'clock at night, on Christmas 
Eve, the oxen in their stalls are always found on their 
knees, as in an attitude of devotion ; and that since the 
alteration of the style they continue to do this, only on 
the eve of Old Christmas Day. An honest countryman 
living on the edge of St. Stephen's Down, in Cornwall, 
informed me, October 28, 1790, that he once, with some 
others, made a trial of the above ; and watching several 
oxen in their stalls, at twelve o'clock at night they ob- 
served the two oldest oxen only fall upon their knees, and 
make a cruel moan like Christian creatures*" ! ! There 
is an old print of the Nativity, in which the oxen in the 
stable, near Jesus and his mother, are actually represented 
on their knees, and in a suppliant posture ! ! ! 

We shall be told that many of the monstrous scenes of 
depravity, or of folly, which have been related, belonged 
to times that are long gone by ; that they were perversions 
of institutions in themselves good ; and that now a " rea- 
sonable service" supplies the place of our ancient pastimes. 
It will be admitted that, in their grosser characteristics, 
the time is gone by for the toleration of such impurities ; 
and doubtless the progress of enlightenment would have 

* See Brand's Popular Antiquities. 



THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 155 

entirely dissipated them, had there not been a religious 
character attached thereto. But the religion which adopted 
them is unchanged ; the Church which claimed the right 
to " decree rites and ceremonies" is still the National 
Church ; its support is still imperative as "a part and 
parcel of the law of the land"; and those who do not 
keep to the faith of certain creeds agreeably to law, will 
now, as then, " without doubt perish everlastingly": the 
denunciations, too, against those who would expose them 
are not wanting in ferocity; and the iniquity of connect- 
ing such institutions, having such an original, with the 
Divine laws, is still continued. It may safely be denied 
that even the grossest practices recorded were a "per- 
version" of the original institution of these observances; 
it having been shown that their institution was not almost 
— but altogether — heathen, not being esteemed the insti- 
tution of the Gospel until kings and priests so willed 
it, impiously daring to affix them to enlightened prin- 
ciples by means of a character of piety and holiness. But 
we are told, and that too in defiance of history and of fact, 
that "the festivals of the Christian Church*" (that is, 
not the Church of God, but that Church which is "part 
and parcel of the law of the land,") "were instituted for 
the most amiable purposes, to keep up a steady and regu- 
lar succession of religious observances." And one of the 
highest Church authorities upon these subjects informs us, 
that the way to keep those 216 holy days of the English 
Church, is by setting them apart for the exercise of re- 
ligious duties, and by abstaining from worldly recreations, 
as such might hinder our attendance upon the worship of 
God. Yet a Protestant king, (James I.,) the "Defender 
of the Faith," and the legal head of this same Church, at 
a period not long preceding the authority last quoted, "did 
* Brady, Clavis Calendaria. 



156 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 

justly" (to use his own words,) "rebuke some puritans and 
precise people, who had punished our good people in Lan- 
cashire for using their lawful recreations and honest ex- 
ercises on Sundays, and other holy days, after the after- 
noon sermon : it is our will that, after divine service, our 
good people be not disturbed from any lawful recreation, 
such as dancing, either for men or women ; archery for 
men, leaping, vaulting, nor for having Maypoles, nor Whit- 
sun ales, nor morris dancers and other sports, so as the 
same may be had without neglect of divine service." 

These references to the Established Church are, however, 
only incidental, the design of these remarks being more 
the statement of facts than of opinions ; and from those 
facts it should seem, that nearly the whole of the religious 
bodies of this and all other " Christian countries," have 
sanctified the leaders of heathenism and of idolatry : thus, 
we find certain feasts celebrated with certain observances 
in honour of heathen deities ; thence we follow the same 
rites to the Roman Catholic Missal, and there observe that 
the heathen institutions are sanctioned almost without 
disguise : from this we proceed to the "Book of Common 
Prayer, and Administration of the Sacrament, and other 
Rites and Ceremonies, according to the Use of the Church 
of England "; and there we are presented with the Roman 
Catholic Calendar, somewhat curtailed, but still the les- 
sons, collects, &c, almost wholly zmreformed : thence we 
direct our attention to the Presbyterians, who observe the 
Thursdays previous to receiving the Lord's Supper as so- 
lemn fasts, and who enact that out of the " visible church 
there is no ordinary possibility of salvation," and who 
almost claim a sort of divine right for the Presbyterian 
form of church government. 

Mr. Wesley, as the great lawgiver of the Methodists, 
boasts, that his sect "adhere to all that they learned when 



DISSENTERS. 157 

they were children in their Catechism and Common Prayer 
Book ; that they agree with the Church of England in ex- 
ternals and circumstantials ; that they observe the Church 
days of fasting and abstinence, the forty days of Lent, the 
Ember Days, the Rogation Days, and all the Fridays in 
the year, except Christmas Day." 

A portion of the Unitarian body are also distinguished 
by their acquiescence in many of the ceremonial ob- 
servances of the National Church, and have a reformed 
"Book of Common Prayer," — "the seventh edition, with 
additional Collects," containing "the Liturgy as now used 
in Essex Street/' in which there is the Order for the 
Morning Prayer every "Lord's day throughout the year, 
the same to be used with the proper Collects upon Christ- 
mas Day, Good Friday, Easter Day, and Whitsuntide," 
together with other imitations of the first-born of the 
Woman of Babylon; as regards even the dress of the mi- 
nister ; the forms of the service ; the prayers, amongst 
which are those for "the burial of the dead," "prayers to 
be used in His Majesty's navy every day," "prayers be- 
fore a fight at sea," and "prayers for single persons that 
cannot join with others by reason of the fight." 

Thus the whole presents, as far as English Dissenters 
are concerned, a striking contrast to that of their sturdy 
predecessors in the primitive times of dissent from Po- 
pery: the whole furnishing but too strong a ground for 
the accusation, that amongst them "a resemblance to the 
Church is rather affected than avoided ; their places of 
worship are no more called meetings, but chapels ; their 
ministers assume the title of Reverend \ in some cases 
both the liturgy and surplice are used. The Dissenting 
chapels are like cheap shops ; there is more show in their 
windows, more bowing for custom, than among the old- 



158 



THE SABBATH. 



established traders; but the difference is in the quality, 
not in the appearance of the article*." 

Still, desirous as the National Church maybe to sustain its 
monopoly of heathenism and popery, by excluding from the 
market its less privileged competitors, it is a fair subject for 
scepticism as to whether its hierarchy and clergy can feel in- 
debted to the discretion or good taste of their advocate, in 
what some might feel as but too true an application to their 
avocations of the phraseology of mercantile pursuits. 

The Sabbath. — To the Sabbath is apportioned a pre- 
eminent position amongst our national and church fes- 
tivals, and in its discussion there is involved a most ela- 
borate textual controversy; but previously to entering 
upon an examination of the same, a sketch of the promi- 
nent characteristics of the Sabbath may not be deemed 
unsuitable. 

"The Sabbath/'— -"the rest"— is the allotment of a 
given portion of time for special objects, and which ob- 
jects are of a precise and defined nature. The autho- 
rity for such an observance must be held to depend, not 
upon inference or surmise, but upon those distinctive 
marks which appertain to all the positive institutions of 
the Deity, and in regard to which their chief purposes are 
presumed to consist. These distinctive marks are, 1 . Di- 
vine authority; 2. Time; 3. Place; 4. Upon whom bind- 
ing; 5. How to be observed, and for what purposes; 
6. Whether limited as to time, or perpetual. 

The argument ranges under three divisions : — First, 
The Paradisaical Sabbath ; second, The Jewish Sabbath ; 
third, The Christian Sabbath, or "Lord's Day." 

* Letter to Henry Brougham, Esq., upon his Durham Speech, and 
three Articles in the last Edinburgh Review upon the Support of the 
Clergy. 1823. 



PARADISAICAL SABBATH. 159 

The Paradisaical Sabbath. — The authority for such an 
observance is held to consist in one, and in but one passage 
of the Scriptures (Genesis ii. 2, 3.), and which passage is 
deemed to have established, in " the times of man's inno- 
cency," the institution in question, and to have made it of 
perpetual and of universal obligation. 

The Mosaic account of the Creation is of peculiar inter- 
est ; and although some naturalists and geologists, be- 
cause of the known existence of certain phaenomena, take 
exception to parts, or even to the whole of that remarkable 
relation, yet, even could their dissent be fairly sustained, 
Revelation would not be shaken thereby, the narration 
being traditional, and not assuming to have been derived 
from Divine authority. Still, it cannot in fairness be 
viewed as other than a record of high and peculiar value ; 
and whilst conveyed in a phraseology not in every instance 
admitting of a strictly literal interpretation, it yet presents 
single expressions, and entire passages, which are charac- 
terized by great sublimity and beauty. 

The time occupied in the creation of the material world, 
and all that it contains, is stated to have been "six days"; 
a mode, this, of conveying the fact of successive creation, 
which, if literally taken as six natural days, however well 
when recorded it might be adapted to the narrow compass 
of the human understanding, but ill comports with suit- 
able conceptions of the works of the great Architect of the 
Universe. These days, numbered from one to six, may 
rather be deemed to express periods*, separated from each 
other by such portions of time as the maturing of each 
distinct part of creation would, agreeably to the laws of 
Nature, require : hence, the following progression in the 
narration : — 

* See Michaelis. See also a valuable article in The Freethinking 
Christian's Quarterly Register, 1823, — " Fall of Man disproved." 



160 MOSAIC HISTORY OF THE CREATION. 

Firsts The causing that which had been in chaotic dark- 
ness, and without form and void, to be visited with light ; 
then the division of the firmament ; then the separation of 
the land from the waters ; then "every herb of the field, and 
every plant"; then they were made productive by "a mist 
going up from the earth and watering the whole face of 
the ground"; from thence vegetation advanced, — the earth 
brought forth grass, the herbs yielded seed, and the fruit- 
trees yielded fruit ; then the creation of fish ; and subse- 
quently, the fowls of the air, the beasts of the forest, to- 
gether with u everything that creepeth upon the earth "; 
and when the " heavens and the earth were finished, and 
the host of them," then man was made in the image (i. e. 
the representative) of God, with dominion over the cre- 
ation thus formed. 

This view of successive creation, at periods of time pro- 
bably far removed from each other, tends wholly to relieve 
the Bible history of the Creation from the presumed con- 
tradiction to its statements which is furnished by well-at- 
tested geological remains, the existence of which is deemed 
to be wholly incompatible with confining the operations 
recorded to six successive natural days, or generally to a 
strictly literal interpretation of the narrative ; it also re- 
ceives support from the known laws which are considered 
to govern life, whether animate or inanimate. 

w Species may have been created in succession, at such 
times, and in such places, as to enable them to multi- 
ply and endure for an appointed period, and occupy an 
appointed space on the globe. In order to explain this 
theory, let us suppose every living thing to be destroyed 
in the Western hemisphere, both on the land and in the 
ocean, and permission to be given to man to people this 
great desert, by transporting into it animals and plants 
from the Eastern hemisphere, a strict prohibition being 



MOSES. — lyell's geology. 161 

enforced against introducing two original stocks of the 
same species. Now the result, we conceive, of such a mode 
of colonizing would correspond exactly, so far as regards 
the grouping of animals and plants, with that now observed 
throughout the globe. It would be necessary for natu- 
ralists, before they imported species into particular locali- 
ties, to study attentively the climate and other physical 
conditions of each spot. It would be no less requisite to 
introduce the different species in succession, so that each 
plant and animal might have time and opportunity to mul- 
tiply before the species destined to prey upon it was ad- 
mitted. Many herbs and shrubs, for example, must spread 
far and wide before the sheep, the deer, and the goat could 
be allowed to enter, lest they should devour and annihilate 
the original stocks of many plants, and then perish them- 
selves for want of food. The above-mentioned herbivorous 
animals in their turn must be permitted to make consider- 
able progress before the entrance of the first pair of wolves 
and lions. Insects must be allowed to swarm before the 
swallow could be permitted to skim through the air and 
feast on thousands at one repast "V And assuming Lyell's 
theory to be well founded, it admirably comports with this 
view of the Mosaic history of the Creation, and, as a jus- 
tification for its introduction in this case, will sufficiently 
tend to aid us in the subsequent argument as to the total 
irrelevancy of the seventh day named in this connexion 
to any institution, or as binding upon man any sab- 
batical observance whatever. At the same time we may 
feel deeply impressed with the consciousness that no other 
necessity could exist for successive and distant periods of 
creation, than the submission of all animal and vegetable 
life to those laws which have been affixed to each by the 
Creator of heaven and earth ; and that, did it comport 

* Lyell's Geology, vol. ii. pp. 124, 125. 
M 



162 PARADISAICAL SABBATH. 

with his laws, the Being who said "'Let there be light/ 
and there was light," could, in an inconceivably small por- 
tion of time, call myriads of worlds, and their inhabitants, 
into existence. 

"And on the seventh day God ended his work which he 
had made ; and he rested on the seventh day from all his 
work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh 
day, and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested 
from all his work which God created and made*." This 
simple relation — the phraseology of which cannot well be 
taken literally, partaking as it does of the same character, 
and requiring an application of the same principles of in- 
terpretation as the preceding narration — has been made to 
bend to the following large hypothesis, That it records the 
establishment of a Sabbatical Institution, to be binding 
upon the whole of mankind for ever, taking in of course 
the savage and the civilized man ; the believer in God, 
and also those that may never have heard of his name ; 
the Jew and the idolater; the subject of the kingdom 
of God, and the subject of what in the New Testament 
is called the kingdom of Satan {i.e. the adversary, the 
world) ! 

"God rested on the seventh day, and sanctified it." It 
has already been intimated that the seventh day in common 
with the first, to the sixth, can have no reference to the 
natural day which is so entitled ; and in the summing up 
of the preceding account of the Creation, the detail of the 
seven distinct and successive days is thus passed by : 
" These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth 
when they were created, in the day that the Lord God 
made the earth and the heavens f." The idea, indeed, of 
the Creator of the Universe literally requiring rest, would 
truly be the bringing down to the narrow compass of hu- 

* Gen. ii. 2, 3. t Ibid. ii. 4. 



PARADISAICAL SABBATH. 163 

man conception, the Maker of heaven and earth. " Hast 
thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the 
Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is 
weary*? " " God is not like to some dull artificer, having 
need of sleep, and weary of his labours ; for he spake the 

word only, and all things were made The meaning of 

the text is, that God then desisted from adding anything 
de novo unto the world by him created f •*" 

But, passing by all these views, let the case be met in 
its literal aspect, it being put thus by Michaelis : — 

u Moses found a custom among the people, established 
from the very earliest period, by which they solemnized 
the Sabbath day, and it is probable that the Egyptians 

had left this day to them as a day of rest, at least he 

describes this solemnity as instituted by God immediately 
after the creation J.' ' 

Scriptural evidence by which the assertions of Michaelis 
can be supported is much wanting. There is a total absence 
of proof that Moses found any species of sabbatical obser- 
vance, even known to, much less established amongst, the 
Israelites : there is not a phrase which can admit of an 
inference that their task-masters permitted them to have 
the seventh day, or any other day, free from labour, and 
appropriated to sabbatical observances; neither do the 
verses in Genesis prove that the Sabbath, or any other so- 
lemnity designed for the observance of mankind, was then 
commanded or instituted by God. God gave one com- 
mandment, and but one, to our first parent: — "And the 
Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of 
the garden thou mayest freely eat : but of the tree of the 
knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it§." 

* Isa. xl. 28. f Heylin, History of the Sabbath, p. 335. 

X Michaelis's Commentaries on the Laws of Moses, vol. iii. p. 156. 
§ Gen. ii. 16, 17. 

M 2 



164 PARADISAICAL SABBATH. 

Institutions were given as the men selected by God in- 
creased in numbers, in wants, and in civilization. Had the 
Sabbath been thus early commanded, — had its observance 
been conceded to the Israelites by the Egyptians, — had 
Moses really u found " it an existing institution when he 
became their divinely appointed leader, — had there been a 
tradition even of its existence, — how is it that there is no 
reference to such throughout the patriarchal ages, when 
very minute details are given of comparatively unimportant 
matters ? How is it that of Abraham, who whilst because 
of his obedience to the commands of God he received the 
distinguished honour of having assured unto him, that in 
his seed all nations of the earth should be blessed, yet 
that even of him there should be no record that he was an 
observer of a " solemnity instituted by God immediately 
after the creation," ' — he who even when in the land of the 
Philistines Ci planted a grove in Beersheba, and called there 
on the name of the Lord, the everlasting God," and who 
brought up his children and his household to follow in his 
footsteps ? How can it be accounted for, if thus instituted, 
and if the "Egyptians had left the Israelites this day as a 
day of rest," that when they had escaped from slavery, and 
were their own masters, they should have so wholly for- 
gotten the observance of this "established solemnity/'' that 
they should require to be drilled into it by direct Diviue in- 
terference — by an extraordinary miracle, and by the reiter- 
ated commands of their leader; and that, despite even of 
such means to effect its then establishment amongst them, 
it yet " came to pass that there went out some of the people 
to gather(manna) on the seventh day, and they found none," 
and in consequence of this disobedience on the part of 
some to the command then given, "the Lord said unto 
Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and 
my laws ? . . . . The Lord hath given you the sabbath, there- 



THE WILDERNESS. — PALEY. 165 

fore he giveth you (i. e. for the first time) on the sixth day 
the bread of two days : abide ye every man in his place, 
let no man go out of his place on the seventh day. So the 
people rested on the seventh day*"} 

The kind of disobedience in the instance above cited, 
proves a previous ignorance of any such institution. So 
in the earlier part of the same chapter the effect upon "the 
rulers " of the gathering by some of a double quantity of 
manna, induces the same conclusion. For of the manna they 
were to gather one omer for each man : " And Moses said, 
Let no man leave of it till the morning; " but "it came to 
pass that on the sixth day they gathered two omers for one 
man." This being deemed to be a violation of the previous 
command, and the Jirst sabbath day not having yet taken 
place, " all the rulers of the congregation came and told 
Moses" And Moses "said unto them, This is that which 
the Lord hath said, Tomorrow is the rest of the holy 
sabbath unto the Lord" And then follow such directions, 
in relation to its observance, as are wholly incompatible 
with a previously known and established institution : " Bake 
that which ye will bake today, and seethe that which ye 
will seethe; and that which remaineth over lay up for you 
to be kept until the morning. And they laid it up till the 
morning, . . . and it did not stink. . . . And Moses said, Eat 
that today ; for today is a sabbath unto the Lord : today 
ye shall not find it in the field.' ' 

" The transaction in the wilderness was the first actual 
institution of the Sabbath ; nor is there in the passage 
above quoted any intimation that the Sabbath when ap- 
pointed to be observed was only the revival of an ancient 
institution which had been neglected, forgotten, or sus- 
pended ; nor is any such neglect imputed either to the in- 
habitants of the Old World, or to any part of the family 
* Exod. xvi. 28, 29. 



166 PARADISAICAL SABBATH. 

of Noah ; nor is any permission recorded to dispense with 
the institutions during the captivity of the Jews in Egypt, 
or on any other public emergency *." 

But apart from all these views, and taking the two verses 
in Genesis literally as they stand, they relate that which 
God did on the seventh day, and also why he did it : but 
they do not furnish a record of any institution ; neither 
do they contain any command ; nor do they refer to, as 
binding upon man, a sabbatical or any other observance 
whatever. If indeed such an institution was then esta- 
blished, it was so by God, and is not commanded for the 
observance of man. If an example was then set, it was 
an example as affecting God alone ; the literal record be- 
ing, that on the seventh day God having ended his work, 
he rested on that day; he blessed and sanctified it/' And 
for what purpose ? " Because that on it he had rested from 
all his work which God created and made." 

It should be borne in mind that this statement was 
written from two to three thousand years after the time of 
Adam ; that the author was a Jew, and that he wrote at a 
period when the Sabbath had been unequivocally established 
amongst his countrymen. Moses having descended from 
Mount Sinai, God through him delivered his will to the 
people. This communication was that which is so appro- 
priately entitled Commandments ; and to enforce which the 
authority from whence they emanated might be supposed, 
as it related to God, to supersede any statement of reasons 
for the same; yet the record of the Decalogue as contained 
in the twentieth chapter of Exodus presents a verse (the 
11th) which is almost identical with the passages in Ge- 
nesis ; and with regard to which, as it interferes with the 
character and tends to destroy the unity of that sacred 
document, the suggestion as to how far it was originally a 
* Paley, vol. ii. p. 260. 



PARADISAICAL SABBATH. 167 

marginal note, and subsequently incorporated with the 
text, may not be undeserving of attention ; especially as 
the corresponding enumeration of the Ten Commandments 
in the fifth chapter of Deuteronomy does not present any 
reference to the point contained in the above verse. But 
in either case it is abundantly manifest that had the ob- 
servance been, prior to the time of Moses, an established 
one amongst the Jews, their ignorance of its character- 
istics, and of their own practices too, would require a 
miracle to account for it, and even then would place the 
authority of the prophet, as it relates to Sabbaths, in a 
shape more than questionable. "Wherefore I caused them 
to go forth out of the land of Egypt, and brought them 
into the wilderness; and I gave them my statutes, and 

showed them my judgements Moreover also I gave 

them (the Jews, not the whole of mankind, not from the 
'very earliest period/ but after they were 'brought forth 
from Egypt/) my sabbaths, (not because the Deity had 
finished the creation in six days, and rested on the seventh, 
but) to be a sign between me and them, that they might 
know that I am the Lord that sanctify them*." 

* Ezek. xx. 10—12. 



168 



CHAPTER II. 

THE JEWISH SABBATH. 

It being conceded that the observance of a Sabbath ought 
not to rest upon inference, — that the knowledge of such an 
institution is not derivable from nature, — and that to be 
binding upon the believers of the Gospel of Jesus, or upon 
all mankind, it must expressly and positively be com- 
manded by Divine authority to be upon these parties thus 
binding, the nature of our inquiries becomes at once nar- 
rowed, and, what is still better, distinct and denned. 

It has been seen that the Paradisaical Sabbath is wholly 
wanting in the inseparable characteristics of & positive or 
perpetual institution', and the importance of the point be- 
ing distinctly established will be correctly estimated by a 
perusal of the writings of some of the best informed and 
most liberal amongst the defenders of the observance of 
the modern Sabbath, — these parties having admitted that 
the sabbatical observance instituted by Moses in the wil- 
derness, and subsequently commanded by God on Mount 
Sinai, was a command and an institution exclusively Jew- 
ish, and as such necessarily sharing the fate of all the 
other Jewish institutions, upon the destruction of their na- 
tional polity. " To your opinions respecting the abolition 
of the Jewish ceremonial rites, and amongst them that 
of the Sabbath, I cordially assent. I admit, with yourself 
and Paley and Beausobre, that no mention is made of a 
Sabbath before the sojourn of the Israelites in the wilder- 



JEWISH SABBATH. 169 

ness; — I grant that no passage is to be found in the New 
Testament directing the observance of a Sabbath ; — nay, 
more, I allow that our Saviour himself, though no Sabbath 
breaker, as you represent him, did, as Lord of the Sabbath, 
both by word and deed, give intimation to the Jews of its 
approaching dissolution, and that St. Paul did exhort his 
converts to omit the observance of this and other ordi- 
nances, which Christ had as it were blotted out^ — 

NAILING THEM TO THE CROSS *." 

This clear, comprehensive and true statement as to the 
Scriptural evidence touching the Sabbath, and also the 
joint authorities of the Messiah and of Paul, might be 
supposed to be, not almost, but altogether decisive as to the 
Divine authority for the present observance thereof: but it 
is not so, not even with the candid and enlightened author 
from whose work the passage is selected; and it therefore 
becomes the more necessary to recur to the broad and di- 
stinctive features which characterize the Jewish Sabbath, 
as,, in regard to authority, it, and it alone, has the essential 
marks of a positive and Divine institution. 

First, Its Divine authority. 

The Israelites when in the wilderness were commanded 
to gather on the sixth day a double portion of manna; for 
"the Lord hath said, Tomorrow is the rest of the holy sab- 
bath unto the Lord. . . . Six days ye shall gather it; but on 
the seventh day, which is the sabbath, in it there shall be 
none." This, as has been conceded by the late (T. S. Hughes) 
Christian Advocate of Cambridge, by Paley, and still more 
recently by Dr. Whately^ the present Archbishop of Dublin, 
is not merely the first institution, but it is the first time that 
the Sabbath is mentioned in the Scriptures; and the whole 

* See A Letter to G. Higgins, Esq., on his Horce Sdbbaticce, by the 
Rev. T. S. Hughes, B.D., Christian Advocate in the University of Cam- 
bridge, pp. 4, 5. Rivington, 1826. 



170 JEWISH SABBATH. 

relation proves that previously to this time it had had no 
existence in any shape amongst the people : thus, on the 
seventh day, without regard to the new command, some 
went out to gather manna, and "the Lord said unto Moses 
(as to such persons), How long refuse ye to keep my com- 
mandments and my laws ? For the Lord hath given you 

the sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the 

bread of two days So the people rested on the seventh 

day*/' And, finally, the observance by the Jews was sealed 
on Mount Sinai by the command of God, — ■" Remember 
the sabbath day to keep it holy/' 

Second, How to be observed. 

Abstinence from labour, — a day of rest, — ceasing from 
any kind of work. " Six days shalt thou labour, and do all 
thy work : but the seventh is the sabbath day of the Lord thy 
God ; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, 
nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, 
nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates f," 
"Whosoever doeth any work on the sabbath day, he shall 
surely be put to deathly." 

Third, Upon whom binding, and for what purpose. 

Upon the Jewish people only, and upon the Jewish so 
long as, and no longer than, they continued to be the peo- 
ple of God. — "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 
Speak thou unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my 
sabbaths ye shall keep : for it is a sign between me and 
you throughout your generations ; that ye may know that 
I am the Lord that doth sanctify you (set you apart) §. " — 
"Remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, 

and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence 

therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the 
sabbath day\\" — "Blessed is the man that doeth this, 

* See Exod. xvi. 28—30. f Ibid. xx. 9, 10. % Ibid. xxxi. 15. 
§ Ibid. xxxi. 12, 13. || Deut. v. 15. 



JEWISH SABBATH. 171 

and the son of man that layeth hold on it ; that keepeth 
the sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from 
doing any evil*. 5 ' — " The seventh day is the sabbath of 
rest, an holy convocation ; ye shall do no work therein : it 
is the sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings f ." From 
these and corresponding passages, we derive a knowledge 
of this institution, — possessing, as it does, all the distinc- 
tive marks which a national observance must necessarily 
require, and which, in all the principles that make it fitting 
and imperative upon a nation, it possesses in common with 
the whole of the other Jewish institutions, — there being 
no point left in uncertainty, — nothing left to choice, — no- 
thing to inference, — no possibility of controversy or of 
misconception or error in relation to the command for its 
observance, — the manner, — the time, — the object and the 
specific punishment in cases of its neglect or abuse ; and 
it cannot be too strongly borne in mind, that in each and 
in all of these indispensable characteristics the Paradisai- 
cal Sabbath is wholly wanting; and in the subsequent 
pages it will be seen that the Christian Sabbath, or Lord's 
Day, is alike destitute of Scriptural authority, and that 
both are without any claim upon our observance ; for, as 
has been truly, although from the authority from whence 
derived, somewhat singularly said, "positive precepts are 
such as require conduct of moral beings which, antecedent- 
ly to the promulgation of them, was not their duty, and 
independently of them would never have become their 
duty}." 

Where are the "positive precepts" for the observance — 
from the Creation to the end of time, and by all mankind 
whether savage or civilized, whether believers in Revelation 

* Isa. lvi. 2. t Levit. xxiii. 3. 

X The Perpetuity of the Sabbath, by the Rev. Timothy Dwight, LL.D, 
London edit. p. 8. 



172 THE JEWISH SABBATH NOT ESSENTIALLY 

or unbelievers — of the " Paradisaical Sabbath," or of the 
"Lord's Day," or "Christian Sabbath"? 

Of the Jewish Sabbath the "positive precepts" have 
been recounted ; and it may be of service to keep these 
precepts in remembrance. 

The term ' Sabbath' is applied in the Scriptures to other 
times and seasons besides the seventh day. Sabbath is 
also taken for the whole week, likewise for all the Jewish 
festivals indifferently*. a Keep my sabbaths," — that is, 
my feasts, as the Passover, the Feast of Tabernacles. 
Ezekiel says that " sabbaths are signs that God has given to 
his people, to distinguish them from other nations\" 

Jennings, Michaelis, and a host of minor authorities, as- 
sume that u the Sabbath" of the Jews was a religious in- 
stitution especially appropriated to divine worship. The 
latter states that u the seventh day of the week was or- 
dained to be a day of divine worship X;" and the former 
maintains that u the seventh day of the week was by the 
Jewish law peculiarly consecrated to the service ofGod§." 
For Scriptural authority for these assertions, the laws 
instituting the Sabbath afford little, if any, countenance; 
and whilst a view the direct reverse, and which should go 
to affix an exclusively civil and political character to the 
institution, might be contending for too much, — still the 
position may be held to be tenable which should main- 
tain, that in object and in duties the Jewish Sabbath was 
essentially a local, civil, and political institution ; being 
no further religious than as all the political institutions of 
the Jews were so, and, in a certain sense, resulting from 
the peculiar and exclusive relationship in which the He- 

* See Levit. xix. 3, 30. 

t See Cruden's Concordance. 

\ Michaelis's Commentaries on the Laws of Moses, vol. iii. p. 150. 

§ Jennings's Jewish Antiquities, 1823, p. 428. 






A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION. 17$ 

brews stood towards God and the theocratic government 
under which they lived. 

The seventh day is spoken of as the "sabbath of rest," 
— a rest from labour, and not one of religious observance, 
— a rest for the servant in common with the master, 
"that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as 
xuell as thou*;" and for the ox and the ass alike with the 
manservant and the maidservant. No officer was ap- 
pointed specifically for Sabbath celebrations; no worship 
or forms were prescribed for that day, unless the sacrifice 
can be so deemed, — that being the only Sabbath service 
approaching to religion, the priests making on the Sabbath 
double offering f: but even the double sacrifices were by 
the priests only ; they were the token of a peculiar cove- 
nant, and the people did not personally join in them, — the 
people, as such, having no command for any public reli- 
gious acts, or forms of devotion, on the Sabbath day. The 
strength of these facts may possibly account for the forced 
interpretation, as well as the unfitting importance which 
some commentators have laboured to attach to the passage 
"God blessed the seventh day, and halloived itf." Le 
Clerc shows that the phrase "hallowing" means abstain- 
ing from work or labour: thus in Jeremiah, "Neither 
carry forth a burden out of your houses on the sabbath 
day, neither do ye any work, but hallow ye the sabbath 
day, as I commanded your fathers \" And in the instance 
of the man 1 1 who gathered sticks on the Sabbath day being 
stoned to death for the act, the violation was his having 
worked, i. e. not hallowed the Sabbath day. "Doing no 
work on the Sabbath, and hallowing or sanctifying it, are 
plainly used as expressions of the same import^." 

* Deut. v. 14. \ Numb, xxviii. 9. 

% Gen. xx. 11. § Jerera. xvii. 22 : see also verse 24. 

|| Numb. xv. 32. ^ See Jennings, p. 442. 



174 JEWISH SABBATH NOT RELIGJOUS. 

Iii the passage already quoted from Leviticus, the seventh 
day is called "the sabbath of rest, an holy convocation*" 
and Jennings labours to sustain the view, that holy convo- 
cations "are most naturally to be understood of assemblies 
for religious worship*." He is, however, not supported in 
this view by the no mean authorities Le Clerc and Vitringa. 
It is also said that a "holy convocation" means a holy as- 
sembly as in our national churches. This view cannot be 
sustained : it means a domestic meeting, — an assembly in 
their homes, as shown in the latter part of the verse, "The 
seventh day is a sabbath of rest, an holy convocation ; ye 
shall do no work therein ; it is the sabbath of the Lord in 
all your dwellings." And this statement is followed by 
one relating to the Passover : " These are the feasts of 
the Lord, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim 
in their seasons. In the fourteenth day of the first month 
at even is the Lord's passoverf." 

The Passover was kept in their houses, not at the tem- 
ple ; and it may be remarked in passing, that when the 
Lord's Supper is, somewhat strangely, compared to the 
Passover, this distinction is not remembered, — the Jews 
kept the Passover, not with the priests/but each man at the 
head of the table in his own house :^so with the holy con 
vocation, — a meeting in theirown homes. And assuming 
these views to be a correct representation of the passages in 
which the phrases "hallowed," " sanctified," and "holy 
convocation" occur, it would be difficult to find any other 
passages which could be tortured into the support of the 
doctrine that the Jewish Sabbath was appointed by God 
for public devotion as well as for rest ; and this difficulty- 
is so apparent, that the advocates for its religious character 
feel the position in which the absence of evidence places 
their case. " It is a matter of considerable difficulty to 

* Jennings, p. 443. f Levit. xxiii. 4, 5. 



SABBATICAL YEAR. JUBILEE. 175 

determine whether the Levitical law enjoined upon the 
people the practice of public worship on this day : the only 
thing that appears to sanction the opinion is, that it is in 
several places said to be c an holy convocation, which de- 
notes an assembly — a convocation ' : the phrase, however, is 
too doubtful in its signification to warrant us in affirm- 
ing this to have been the case*." And thus, to view the 
Sabbath as mainly a civil and political, and not even a re- 
ligious Jewish institution, the following passage from 
Heylinmay not be deemed unimportant: "In the Sabbath, 
that which was principally aimed at was rest from labour, 
that neither they (the Jews) nor any that belonged unto 
them should do any manner of ivork upon that day, but 
sit still and rest themselves. Their meditating on God's 
word, or on his goodness manifested in the world's crea- 
tion, was to that an accessory ; and as for reading the Law 
in the congregation, that ivas not taken up in more than 
a thousand years after the Law was given ; and being 
taken up came in by ecclesiastical ordinance only, — no di- 
vine authority -f." 

The Sabbatical Year, and the Year of Jubilee, were also 
in their arrangement essentially political, being in no other 
sense religious than as connected, in common with the 
other Jewish institutions, with their theocracy. And the 
Sabbatical year was the seventh year's rest for the land of 
Judea, as well as for the people : " When ye come into the 
land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath 
unto the Lord J." There was to be a total cessation from 
agricultural labour; for "thou shalt neither sow thy field, 
nor prune thy vineyard §." "Six years thou shalt sow thy 

* See Holden on the Christian Sabbath, ch. iii. ; and Carpenter's Intro- 
duction to the Study of the Scriptures, p. 444. 

f Heylin's History of the Sabbath, p. 435, 2nd edit. 1723. 

§ Levit. xxv. 4. 



176 SABBATICAL YEAR. 

land, and shalt gather in the fruits thereof: but the seventh 
year thou shalt let it rest and lie still ; that the poor of thy 
people may eat: and what they leave, the beasts of the 
field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy 
vineyard, and with thy olive-yard*." And, as arising 
out of these important civil and political arrangements, 
the power and the especial superintendence of their God 
and their King is caused to be developed ; for, " if ye shall 
say, What shall we eat the seventh year ? behold, we shall 
not sow, nor gather in our increase: then /will command 
my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring 
forth fruit for three years f ." 

The Sabbatical Year also provided for the release from 
personal slavery : " If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six 
years he shall serve : and in the seventh he shall go out 
free for nothing J." For the remission of debts : "At the 
end of every seven years thou shalt make a release. And 
this is the manner of the release : Every creditor that 
lendeth aught unto his neighbour shall release it; he 
shall not exact it of his neighbour, or of his brother; 
because it is called the Lord's release^." During this 
year also the Law was appointed to be read at the Feast 
of Tabernacles : "And Moses commanded them, saying, 
At the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the 
year of release, in the feast of tabernacles, when all Israel 
is come to appear before the Lord thy God in the place 
which he shall choose, thou shalt read this law before 

all Israel in their hearing, that they may hear, and 

that they may learn, and fear the Lord your God, and ob- 
serve to do all the words of this law, as long as ye 

live in the land whither ye go over Jordan to possess 

* Exod. xxiii. 10, 11. f Levit. xxv. 20, 21. 

+ Exod. xxi. 2. § Deut. xv. 1, 2. 



JUBILEE. EQUALITY OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE. 177 

it*" "Thus," says Maimonides, "whoever locked up 
his vineyard, or hedged in his field on the seventh year, 
broke a commandment ; and so likewise if he gathered all 
the fruits into his house : all was to be free, and every 
man's hand alike in all places." 

The Jubilee was the grand Sabbatical Year, and was 
ushered in with trumpets throughout all the land of Israel. 
This was a year of general release, not only from all debts, 
but of all slaves, and of all lands and possessions which 
had been sold or otherwise alienated from the families 
and tribes to which they originally belonged. u And ye 
shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty 

THROUGHOUT ALL THE LAND UNTO ALL THE INHABIT- 
ANTS thereof : it shall be a jubilee unto you ; and ye 
shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall 
return every man unto his family. A jubilee shall that 
fiftieth year be unto youf." 

Thus it is apparent that the same principles of national, 
civil, and political regulations, run through the seventh- 
day sabbath, the seventh-year sabbath, and the seven sep- 
tenaries of years' sabbath. The seventh- day sabbath ap- 
points that cessation from bodily labour which in any 
country, but especially in an Asiatic climate, would seem 
to be desirable for the mental as well as for the bodily well- 
being of man. The seventh-year sabbath is alike marked 
by the wisdom and benevolence of its civil and political 
provisions, it being essential that the land should not be 
worn out by continual tilling, or man by continual toil. 
And the Jubilee sanctifies the great principles of the equal 
liberty and equal privileges of the entire people. The peo- 
ple were made to know the Law by its being publicly read 
to them every seventh year. The distinctiveness of their 

* Deut. xxxi. 10—13. f See Levit. xxv. 10, 11. 



1/8 POLITICAL EQUALITY OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE. 

tribes was preserved ; but, unlike their heathen neigh- 
bours, they were not divided into castes; they were all 
equal in the eye of the Law, and their equality was main- 
tained by means of the laws of the Jubilee, and they were 
saved from the possible existence of that absurd abo- 
mination, an hereditary aristocracy; thus "if God was 
not the sovereign of the Jewish state, the Law was, — the 
best and only safe vicegerent of Almighty Providence to 
which the welfare of human communities can be intrusted. 
If the Hebrew commonwealth was not a theocracy, it was 
a nomocracy : on the other hand, if, as we suppose, in the 
Mosaic polity the civil was subordinate to the religious 
end, still the immediate well-being of the community was 
not sacrificed to the more remote object. The Hebrew 
commonwealth was so constituted as to produce — all cir- 
cumstances of the times, the situation, and the character 
of the people considered — as much or more real happiness 
and independence than any existing or imaginary govern- 
ment of ancient times # ." 

Such, then, were the means which the Divine Being, in 
this early stage of society, adopted for the constantly ad- 
vancing civilization and improvement of his chosen people, 
— their worship of him in their national and also in their 
individual capacity being secured by means of their laws, 
of the priesthood, the tabernacle, the temple, and other 
distinct and positive provisions. Hence, the extraordi- 
nary assertions of some of the modern defenders of the 
Sabbath will be seen to be in no small degree at variance 
with the law and with the testimony : and in the way of 
illustration, and as from one of a class of writers, take the 
following positions of Dr. Dwight. 

"The Sabbath is the only mean ever devised of commu- 

* See Millman's valuable and enlightened " History of the Jews," 
Family Library, No. V. p, 161. 



DR. DWIGHT. THE WORSHIP OF THE MIND. 179 

nicating important instruction to the great mass of man- 
kind/' "Wherever the Sabbath is not, there is no wor- 
ship, no religion ; man forgets God, and God forsakes 
man', the moral world becomes a desert, where life never 
springs and beauty never smiles ; the beams of the Sun of 
righteousness never dawn upon the miserable waste ; the 
rains of heaven never descend *." ! ! And yet, despite of 
these dogmatical assertions, the Sabbath commanded by 
God on Mount Sinai was local as to its operation, and in 
some of its minor provisions hardly appropriate out of 
Judea : it was also limited in duration ; and even when 
combined with sacrifices, and with such other festivals 
as were likewise entitled sabbaths, was declared by the 
Prophet to be held by God in a degree of estimation very 
subordinate to that pure and mental worship which to a 
spiritual Being was most acceptable : and, as ultimately 
introductory to such mental worship, the Sabbath, in com- 
mon with the whole of the Mosaic ritual, was appointed; 
— for, "To what purpose, " says Isaiah, "is the multitude 
of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord.... Bring no 
more vain oblations ; incense is an abomination unto me 5 
the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, 

I cannot away with Your appointed feasts my soul 

hateth : they are a trouble unto me ; I am weary to bear 
them. . . .Wash you, make you clean ; put away the evil of 
your doings from before mine eyes ; cease to do evil ; learn 
to do well ; seek judgement, relieve the oppressed, judge 
the fatherless, plead for the widowf." 

With the pure and holy and lofty strains of the Pro- 
phet the personal conduct and teaching of Jesus and his 
Apostles will be found very strikingly to accord ; and as 
it relates to the Sabbath, and other Jewish institutions, 

* Dwight On the Sabbath, pp. 93, 95. 
t Isaiah i. 11 — 17. 
n2 



180 PREPARATIVES FOR THE ABROGATION OF THE SABBATH. 

Isaiah may be looked upon as their distinguished precur- 
sor. The Sabbath was u neglected, not at once and upon 
the sudden, but leisurely and by degrees. There were 
preparatives unto the Sabbath before it was proclaimed 
as a law by Moses, and there were some preparatives re- 
quired before that law of Moses was repealed : these we 
shall easily discover, if we shall please to look on our Sa- 
viour's actions, who gave the first hint unto his disci- 
ples for the abolishing the Sabbath amongst other cere- 
monies." The abrogation of the Sabbath shows plainly 
that it "was no part of the moral law, or law of Nature, 
there being no law natural which is not perpetual. Ter- 
tullian takes it for confest that it was only a temporary 
constitution*." Jesus, soon after the commencement of 
his ministry, shocked the sabbatical feelings of his country- 
men by permitting his disciples, when passing through the 
corn-fields, to satisfy their cravings of hunger, and also in 
his own person by healing the sick and cleansing the leper, 
on the Sabbath Day : and when accused of doing that 
which was not lawful by the ruler of the synagogue, who 
manifested indignation because the sick had been healed 
on the Sabbath Day, and said unto the people, " There 
are six days in which men ought to work ; in them come 
and be healed, and not on the sabbath day," Jesus re- 
plies by proclaiming his dispensing power over even the 
Sabbath. But had the institution been that which certain 
of its defenders assert it was, namely, a part of the moral 
law, and given for universal and for perpetual observance, 
then the Messiah had not, and could not have such autho- 
rity : but in truth, the " sabbath being made for man, and 
not man for the sabbath, therefore the Son of man is 
Lord [master] even of the sabbath f." And whilst the 

* Heylyn, 401. f See Matth. xii., Mark ii., Luke xiii. 



CONDUCT OF JESUS AS TO THE SABBATH. 181 

Jews persecuted Jesus, and " sought to slay him, because 
he had done these things on the sabbath day, Jesus an- 
swered them, My Father ivorketh hitherto, and I ivork ; 
therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he 
not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was 
his Father *." Thus Jesus persevered in being that cc sab- 
bath-breaker " which the author of the Horce Sabbaticce 
asserts he was, — his teaching, as well as his conduct, being 
in attestation thereof ; for " it will be plainly seen, that 
Jesus did decidedly and avowedly violate the Sabbath f" 
The reasoning of the passage stands thus: — An ordi- 
nance made for man, and not man for it, may be dispensed 
with by my authority : "the Sabbath is such an ordinance ; 
therefore the Sabbath may be dispensed with by my au- 
thority j." 

Jesus came not to destroy the Law and the Prophets, 
but to fulfill : " For verily I say unto you, .... one jot or 
one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be 
fulfilled. " The Law was local and terminable, and part 
of its fulfilment rapidly approaching. The ceremonial ob- 
servances of which the Sabbath formed a part were con- 
nected therewith; the dissolution of the national polity 
was at hand ; the middle wall of partition was about to be 
broken down ; the Gentiles were on the eve of admission, 
in common with the Jews, into a new, a more mental, and 
a purer relationship towards God. And hence the ap- 
propriateness of, as well as necessity for, the conduct of 
Jesus, who, whilst he made no pretensions to a dispensing 
power in respect to moral duties, treated the great p osi- 
tive ordinance of the Sabbath as being of very subordinate 
consideration, — preparatory, doubtless, to the marked con- 
demnation by Paul of its pharisaical observance, and to its 

*. John v. 16—18. f Whately, p. 17. 

% Sec Thoughts on the Sabbath, by the present Archbishop of Dublin. 



182 THE SYNAGOGUE. 

final extinction as a Divine ordinance, in common with the 
other ceremonial observances of the Mosaic ritual. " Have 
ye not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the 
priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blame- 
less ? But I say unto you, that in this place is one greater 
than the temple*/' 

" It is true," says Heylyn, " that Jesus did frequently 
repair unto the synagogues on the Sabbath Day, and did 
read and expound the Law unto the people/' It should, 
however, be noted, that the synagogue was not appointed 
by Divine authority ; that it did not exist until ages after 
the institution of the Sabbath; and that Jesus and others, 
availing themselves of the day, did read and expound the 
Law, which was a valuable employment on such a day; but 
there was no religious rite or ceremonial observance in 
any way connected therewithf. 

Paul, following in the footsteps of his great master, thus 
laments over the members of the church of God who re- 
spected outward ordinances : " Wherefore, if ye be dead 
with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as 
though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances?" 
And as to a preference for days, the Apostle proposes the 
widest latitude, attesting every man in the church, not by 
the observance or non-observance of any especial day, but 
by the conscience of each individual. "Who art thou 
that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he 

standeth or falleth One man esteemeth one day above 

another : another esteemeth every day alike. Let every 
man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that re- 
gardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that 
regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard 

* Matth. xii. 5, 6. 

f See Heylyn. See also a comprehensive and able article on Wor- 
ship, in the FrecthinJcing Christian's Quarterly Register, 1823. 



PAUL OPPOSED TO THE SABBATH. ] 83 

it*." And to the church at Galatia the Apostle is even 
more marked in relation to the principle of the utter 
worthlessness of this class of observances, in his fervid 
denunciation thereof : " How turn ye again to the weak 
and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in 
bondage? Ye observe days, and months, and times, and 
years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon 
you labour in vainf /* 

But the most important passage touching the present 
inquiry, and one which may be viewed as decisive in re- 
lation to apostolic authority, is addressed by Paul to the 
church at Colosse : "And you (Gentiles), being dead in 
your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he 
(Jesus) quickened together with him, having forgiven you 
all trespasses; blotting out the handwriting of ordinances 

that was against us, nailing it to his cross Let 

no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in re- 
spect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sab- 
bath days : which are a shadow of things to come J." 
With such absolute testimony as the above, and so un- 
equivocally applicable, first, to the principle of sabbatical 
or other ceremonial observance, and secondly, to the spe- 
cific fact of such observance, how, consistently with in- 
genuousness and Scriptural knowledge, can the following, 
amidst a multitude of similar declarations, be adequately 
accounted for ? " The duties of the Sabbath must be ac- 
knowledged to have been left by Christ and his Apostles 
exactly as they found them, and all declarations to the 
contrary must be regarded as merely gratuitous and pre- 
sumptive^' ! ! ! But it is not merely the New Testament 
records which the American author and his party set at 
nought, for they alike pass by the ordinary sources of 

* Romans xiv. 4 — 6. f Galat. iv. 9 — 11. 

\ Coloss. ii. 13—17. § See Dwight, p. 82. 



184 DR. DWIGHT. 

Biblical critical authority : thus, " St. Paul calls the Jew- 
ish ritual ' the shadow of things to come/ c figures,' ' an- 
titypes/ c the whole law a schoolmaster to bring us to 
Christ,' 'the elements of the world.' The Jewish religion 
was perfect, in that it was suited to the situation and cir- 
cumstances of the people to whom it was given ; it was 
only imperfect, when compared with the more complete 
oeconomy of the Gospel." One cannot contemplate the 
ceremonial law without also reflecting on its gradual 
abolition ; " but it became criminal to observe it after 
the destruction of Jerusalem, because it [i. e. the Jewish 
law) could not then be legally observed, since the temple 
and altar had been destroyed # ." 

From the above collection of passages and of authori- 
ties, the following conclusions would seem to offer them- 
selves : — 

First, That, apart from specific appointment, all days 
being alike, the selection of any one, and its separation 
from the rest, can only be effected by a positive command ; 
and that, when so appointed, it can be abolished or altered 
only by the institutor, or by his authority. 

Secondly, That the Jewish Sabbath was divinely ap- 
pointed ; that its main purposes were not religious obser- 
vances, but civil and political arrangements, commanded to 
be observed by the Jews, and therefore binding upon them 
whilst their national polity existed and they continued to be 
recognised as the peculiar people of God. They have ceased 
to be that people ; their national existence is destroyed ; 
and the Sabbath, together with their polity, have, as Di- 
vine institutions for present observance, passed away. 

Thirdly, That whilst the command for the Jewish Sab- 
bath is one of the Ten Commandments, it forms no part 

* See Jennings's Jewish Antiquities, p. 439 ; and Brown's Jewish 
Antiquities, vol. ii. 



SABBATH, NOT A PART OF THE MORAL LAW. 185 



of what is termed the moral law, but is mainly a civil and 
political, local and terminable institution ; and neither is 
there any provision for its being " everlasting" or " per- 
petual" in any other or more extended sense, than the 
Feast of Tabernacles, the rite of circumcision, or any other 
of the Mosaic institutions. 

Fourthly, That its observance was not and is not binding 
upon Gentiles as such ; and that any view which should so 
apply it, would alike affix in principle the practice of the 
rite of circumcision, together with the whole of the Jewish 
ritual, upon the Gentiles ; and further, that such Gentiles 
as desire to apply to the present times the Scriptural 
passages in relation to the Jewish Sabbath, should, with- 
out favour or affection, take the institution entire, and con- 
sistently adopt the whole of its provisions, alike as to the 
"very day" and the making it an absolute rest for them- 
selves, their cattle and their servants, and also as to the 
double sacrifice; for, as has been well observed, " one river 
is as good as another, one mountain as good as another, 
except when there is a Divine command ivhich specifies 
one, and then it is our part not to alter or to question a 
Divine command, but to consider whether it extends to 
us, and if it does, to obey it # ." 

Fifthly, That the conduct of Jesus and the declarations 
of Paul are directly averse to an especial reverence for the 
Sabbath, or any other ceremonial institution whatever, par- 
ticularly in connexion with the worship of God; for " be- 
lieve me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this 

mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father 

The true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and 
in truth : for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God 
is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him 
in spirit (mind) and in truth f" That God "that made 

* Whately, pp. 9, 10. f John iv. 21—24. 



186 SABBATH, NOT A PART OF THE MORAL LAW. 

the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord 
of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with 
hands ; neither is worshiped with men's hands, as though 
he needed anything, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, 
and all things*." 

Sixthly, That neither Jesus nor the Apostles instituted 
another "Sabbath/' or a " Lord's Day," or a " First 
Day," or a "Christian Sabbath," or any other day or 
season of any description, for sabbatical or any religious 
ceremonial or other outward observance. 

Seventhly and finally, That there is no Scriptural war- 
rant for the theory of Professor Leef, — " That the ancient 
Sabbath had been sacred from the beginning, and had lost 
none of its primitive sanctions : That the Jewish Sabbath 
was an 'accommodation' to the times of the egress, of the 
ancient Sabbath : That the ancient Sabbath was resumed 
after the destruction of the Jewish polity ; and therefore 
6 there could be no necessity for any new commandment 
in the New Testament, again to sanction it for the future 
observance of the Church.' " 

Why did not the Patriarchs observe the " ancient Sab- 
bath," and obey its "primitive sanctions"} Why had 
Moses to establish the Sabbath ? How can it be accounted 
for, on the part of the Messiah and of Paul, that in their 
marked disregard of the then existing Sabbath, they make 
no reference to the "ancient Sabbath," or of its having 
been "accommodated to the times of the egress," and 
resumed in their days with its "primitive sanctions."? 
And where, in the Scriptures, can the institution of the 
"ancient Sabbath" be found? ! ! ! 

* Acts xvii. 24, 25. 

f See Sermon on the Duty of observing the Christian Sabbath, by 
S. Lee, D.D., Regius Professor, Cambridge, 1833, p. 44. 






187 



CHAPTER III. 

THE LORD'S DAY, OR CHRISTIAN SABBATH.* 

This portion of the controversy ought to lie within a very- 
small compass, as the question to be determined is simply 
one of fact; — Did Jesus, or did he not, — did the Apostles, 
or did they not, command the observance of a Sabbath or 
any other positive civil or religious ceremonial institution ? 
If they did, let the law and the testimony be produced, 
and let such law and such testimony be as distinct as the 
testimony of Moses in relation to the Jewish Sabbath, 
and also of the fourth commandment ; these being excel- 
lent models, — excellent, because for a positive institution 
essentially necessary. 

Any positive religious institution, and especially a Go- 
spel institution of the class in debate, must be required to 
be as incapable of being misunderstood, or of being per- 
verted, as those which appertained to the Hebrew con- 
stitution; indeed, from the novel circumstances in which 
the Gospel placed believers, and from the non-existence, 
in the new state of things, of a national distinctiveness, 
the necessity for precision as to the authority and all the 
details of observance would not be lessened, but, if pos- 
sible, increased. With these preliminary views, a glance 
may suffice at the case, as put forth by the advocates for 
the u modern Sabbath"; — bearing in mind that this in- 
quiry is not as to the expediency or the national benefits 
presumed to be derivable from a given portion of time being 
exempted from the usual occupations of society, but it is 
solely one of fact and of Scriptural authority. 

* See Alban Butler's Feasts and Fasts of the Catholic Church. 



188 THE BISHOP OF LONDON. 

The terms "the Sabbath/' "Lord's Day/' "First Day/' 
and "Christian Sabbath/' are commonly, but most disinge- 
nuously, used as convertible ones in this controversy. The 
phrase Christian Sabbath, like that of " Paradisaical Sab- 
bath," is not Scriptural, the "Sabbath" of the Bible being 
exclusively the Jewish. Yet the unfairness or ignorance 
of some of the authorities in relation to the argument is 
not a little striking, who, whilst they do not pretend to 
contend for the present observance of the Jewish Sabbath, 
and also admit the scarcity of evidence as to the substi- 
tution of another, yet assume that the " Lord's Day" is 
binding, appropriating to its support the passages in the 
Old Testament which relate exclusively to the Jewish 
Sabbath and to the Jews whilst in Judea. Thus the 
Bishop of London* exhorts the citizens, to "sanctify the 
Lord's Day," to " keep holy a Sabbath, 3 ' to avoid the 
" profanation of the Christian Sabbath," " the sacred 
day which both God and man have set apart for religious 
worship and rest, and which is the grand bulwark of Chris- 
tianity." And this is done, with, it should seem, a know- 
ledge on the part of the bishop, that there is no Christian 
Sabbath; and that, whatever "man," or rather the bishop's 
Church, may have done, God hath not set it apart for "re- 
ligious worship and rest; " for in Dr. Blomfield's Appendix 
he himself states, that "the 'Lord's Day' is a more correct 
and more Christian appellation of the first day of the week 
than the ' Sabbath.' And so far were the early Christians 
from terming it the Sabbath, that many of them kept holy 
both theLord'sDay and the SabbathDay." And in the body 
of his pamphlet he adopts with marked approval the true 
and honest statement of Archbishop Sharp f: — "Though 

* A Letter on the present Neglect of the Lord's Day ; by C. J. Blom- 
field, D.D., Bishop of London. 1830. 
f Sermons, vol. iii. p. 218. 



DR. DWIGHT. LORD'S DAY. 189 

there be no particular lata of God that obligeth us Chris- 
tians to observe one day in seven, more than one day in 

six or eighty though there be no particular law of God 

in this matter, yet, since the Christians from the begin- 
ning took up this practice in imitation of the Jews, 

and wherever Christianity hath obtained, it hath hound 
upon us by the laws both ecclesiastical and civil, to lay 
an obligation upon every man's conscience to observe this 
day*." 

Dr. Dwight, however, is even bolder than our metro- 
politan as it relates to Scriptural authority, making, as 
the following position will show, very short work of the 
kind of evidence which a sabbatical institution, designed 
for universal and perpetual observance, would, judging 
from the precision which was characteristic of the Jewish 
Sabbath, seem to demand: — i( The perpetual establishment 
of the Sabbath is evident from Revelations i. ]0.f" Will 
it be credited that the evidence which the Doctor appends 
to this assertion is this passage in the Revelations — ce I 
was in the spirit on the Lord's day"? Here there is 
nothing said of a Sabbath; nothing instituted', no com- 
mand of any kind for any object; no appointment of 
times, or seasons, or persons ; nothing that relates even 
to the "Lord's day" being an institution for any purpose 
whatever ; not an atom of evidence upon which to affix 
the establishment, perpetual or otherwise, of a Sabbath 
at all : — so that the zeal of the Transatlantic author has 
clearly outrun his discretion as well as his judgement and 
his evidence. The passage (the only one in the Bible in 
which "the Lord's day" occurs,) having been made of too 
much importance in this investigation, and by authorities 
of too high consideration, to be left without additional in- 

* See Bishop of London's Pamphlet, p. 7, and Appendix, 
f Dwight, p. 19. 



190 IS not "the lord's day" the day of the lord? 

vestigation, it may be well to attend still more closely to 
this, the prominent text in the controversy; and the fact 
that such writers as Whately and Paley affix to it a chief 
position in support of "the Lord's Day" tends much to 
prove the scantiness of Scriptural evidence in support of 
even their chastened and moderated views. 

"At the time that St. John wrote the book of his Reve- 
lation, the first day of the week had obtained the name of 
the ( Lord's Day J c I was in the spirit,' says he, c on the 
Lord's Day/ which name, and St. John's use of it, suffi- 
ciently denote the appropriation of this day to the service 

of religion I make no doubt that by the Lord's Day 

was meant the first day of the week*." 

Could even Paley' s view be sustained, it would not 
prove that another Sabbath was instituted, or that a sub- 
stitute for the Sabbath, under the designation of "the 
Lord's Day," was divinely appointed. 

But to descend to the minor features in this case, how 
can the simple statement of John, that he was in the spirit 
on the Lord's day, denote any existing general appro- 
priation of the day upon which that occurred, amongst 
believers, to what Paley calls " the service of religion"? 
Or by what secret communication could Paley entertain 
66 no doubt that by the Lord's day was meant the first 
day"? In explanation of the term "Lord's day," the 
following suggestions are offered, with the remark, that 
should they be deemed unsatisfactory, still the argument 
remains untouched, that the " Lord's day" was not a Di- 
vine institution ; neither was its observance commanded 
by Jesus or the Apostles, and consequently its observ- 
ance by believers cannot be binding in reference to such 
authority. 

The "Lord's day," — is it not equivalent to what in other 

* Paley, vol. ii. p. 268. 



SECOND COMING OF JESUS. 191 

passages is called "the day of the Lord/' — that is, the day, 
or time, or period, when the Messiah, agreeably to the pro- 
phecies, shall again appear upon earth, in power and great 
glory? The words occur at the commencement of John's 
relation of the Revelation, which had been communicated 
by Jesus to him whilst John was in the Isle of Patmos, of 
the particulars of the future dealing of God with man ; and 
in which, occurrences at the distance of many ages are re- 
lated as then existing,— things that are not, being spoken 
of as things that are. Thus, his being " in the spirit on 
the Lord's day," — was it not his being made acquainted 
(i. e. being carried in his mind onward to the day of the 
Lord,) in relation to the " determinate counsel and fore- 
knowledge of God" — when the day or period (which John 
describes in the subsequent chapters,) would occur, when 
the faithful should live and reign with the Lord for a 
thousand years, and over whom the second death was to 
have no power? 

This view seems to receive support from the connecting 
verses. It was "the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God 
gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must 
shortly come to pass ; and he sent and signified it by his 
angel [messenger] unto his servant John : who bare record 
of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, 

and of all things that he saw Behold, he cometh with 

clouds ; and every eye shall see him, and they also which 
pierced him : and all kindreds of the earth shall wail be- 
cause of him*." And, "I was in the spirit on the Lord's 
day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, 
saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the lastf,"&c. 
Thus showing that the whole is connected with the second 
coming of Jesus, and that the "Lord's day" is "the day 
or period of the coming of the Lord," when he cometh 

* Rev. i. 1, 2,7. f Ibid. 10, 11. 



192 

with clouds and when every eye shall see him, — and not 
the particular day upon which John received the Reve- 
lation; although, had it so been, it could not have the 
most distant connexion with establishing any institution, 
whether for rest or for religious observance. In further 
confirmation of this view, see the following passages: — 
" Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the 
coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord*." 
" Ye have acknowledged us in part, that we are your re- 
joicing, even as ye also are ours in the day of the Lord 
Jesus f." "For the Lord himself shall descend from 
heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and 
with the trump of God : and the dead in Christ shall rise 

first But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye 

have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know 
perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in 
the night J." 

The " First Day." — " I make no doubt,''' says Paley, 
" that by the Lord's Day was meant the first day of the 
week." And this opinion is a prevalent one amongst that 
class of theologians who correctly renounce all claims to 
the perpetuity or present applicability of the Jewish Sab- 
bath, but yet hold to the doctrine of the Scriptural recog- 
nition of a substitute for that Sabbath, in the first day of 
the week being set apart for religious worship. Upon the 
presumption that the preceding view of" the Lord's day" 
is the right one, Paley's assertion is wholly groundless; 
but even if otherwise, there is not the slightest evidence, 
from that solitary passage in the Revelations, to show that 
by "the Lord's day" John meant the first day of the 
week, or, the converse, that in either or in the whole of 
these passages in which the words "first day" occur, the 
several writers thereof meant the Lord's Day : and in order 

* Mai, iv. 5. f 2 Cor. i. 14. J 1 Thess. iv. 16. & v. 1, 2. 



JESUS TEACHING HIS DISCIPLES. "FIRST DAY." 193 

fairly to estimate the bearing and the importance in the 
controversy of sustaining this position, the passages, to- 
gether with their connexion, are submitted. 

John relates that after the crucifixion of Jesus, Mary 
Magdalen on "the first day" of the week visited the sepul- 
chre, and found that the stone had been removed therefrom. 
Subsequently she saw and conversed with Jesus, who on 
the evening of the same day, "being the first day of the 
week, stood in the midst of his disciples, and said, Peace 
be unto you/' These disciples were Jews ; their Sabbath 
teas the seventh day, — did Jesus, in the above verse, sub- 
stitute the first day for the seventh day ? Is there in it any 
command for any day being set apart? Has the passage 
any one feature of being a positive institution ? Jesus also 
showed himself to his disciples at the sea of Tiberias, 
and was likewise seen of his disciples fox forty days after 
his resurrection, and before his ascension ; and whilst 
such a period would seem to be not unfitting for the 
resumption of old, or the appointment of new positive 
ceremonial institutions, if there were to be any, either 
then or in perpetuity, — we are left in total darkness in 
relation thereto; being informed by the historian, — not 
that Jesus commanded to be set apart "the First Day," 
or "the Lord's Day," or "the Christian Sabbath," or 
that "the primitive Sabbath" was to be resumed*, — 
but that for the forty days which he was with them he 
was teaching and " speaking of the things pertaining to 
the kingdom of God": so that Paley, notwithstanding 
the importance to his case of his view being sustained, 
may well, in relation to this passage^ say that this appear- 
ance of Jesus, "for anything that appears in the ac- 
count, might, as to the day, have been accidental ; but," 

* See Professor Lee's Sermon. See also Alban Butler's Moveable 
Feasts and Fasts of the Catholic Church. 

o 



194 THE FEASTS OF LOVE. 

continues he, u in the 26th verse of the same chapter 
(John xx.), we read, that after eight days, that is, on the 
first day of the week following again, the disciples were 
within ; which second meeting upon the same day of the 
week looks like an appointment and design to meet on that 
particular day *." Now what does the 26th verse contain ? 
cc And after eight days again his disciples were within, 
and Thomas with them : then came Jesus, the doors be- 
ing shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto 
you."!!! 

Does this verse strengthen the case ? Where, in the 
above, is the command ? Where the institution ? Where 
the recognition, on the part either of the Apostles or of 
Jesus, of any existing positive institution at all on the 
first day? Where the evidence upon which the Bishop of 
London (p. 96,) asserts that amongst the authorities a to 
keep holy a Sabbath or Lord's Day," is the "uniform 
practice of the Church of Christ, even from the death of 
its divine founder, and before his ascension into glory" ? 

Seeing that Jesus did not institute a new Sabbath, or 
resume any old institution, or order the sanctification of 
any other day for especial religious ceremonial observ- 
ance, the single passage in the Acts, and the correspond- 
ing one in the Corinthians, are the only passages, in ad- 
dition to the foregoing, which are adduced under this head ; 
and they next require examination. 

From the peculiar position in which the Apostolic 
Church was placed, it would appear that for a period 
the believers had all things in common ; and that, from 
being thus temporarily situated, it should seem there ori- 
ginated the Agapce, or feasts of love ; and that officers, 
i. e, deacons and deaconesses, superintended the manage- 

* Paley's Political and Moral Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 267- 



FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK. 195 

ment thereof. Paul having sailed from Philippi, after the 
days of unleavened breads came unto them to Troas in five 
days, where he abode seven days; and " upon the Jirst day 
of the week, when the disciples came together to break 
bread, he preached unto them, ready to depart on the 
morrow, and continued his speech until midnight :" 
thus, availing himself of the occasion of their common 
meal, when they would be likely to be assembled in the 
greatest number, to impart to them instruction previously 
to his departure. To the Corinthians he advises the time 
for collecting for these objects, and thus states his reason 
for so directing the Church: "Concerning the collection 
for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of 
Galatia, even so do ye. Upon the Jirst day of the week 
let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath 
prospered him, that there be no gatherings ivhen I come. 
And when I come, whomsoever ye shall approve by your 
letters, them will I send to bring your liberality unto 
Jerusalem* '." 

Whilst the excellency, and appropriateness to the pe- 
culiar circumstances in which the believers were then 
placed, of these simple and benevolent arrangements is 
obvious, it is in vain to look to these passages — and no 
others are adduced — for any new positive ceremonial insti- 
tution appertaining to the Gospel ceconomy : there is here 
nothing in relation to the fast day which should mark it 
out, as instituted, from the third, or the eighth, or any other 
day of the week, there being no command, — no setting 
apart, — no evidence of its being an existing institution ; 
and it is difficult to account for the assertion of a writer 
so candid and so enlightened as Dr. Whately, in relation 
to these passages, that " there are indeed sufficiently 

* See 1 Cor. xvi. 1—3. 

o2 



196 constantine's sunday. 

plain marks of the early Christians having observed the 
Lord's Day as a religious festival even from the very 
resurrection : John xx. 19, 26; Acts, xx. 7 ', 1 Cor. xvi. 2 ; 
Rev. i. 10.*" 

If by the early Christians the believers during the Apo- 
stolic days are meant, it is tolerably apparent that the 
"marks " exist not in the passages quoted, neither do they in 
any other portion of the New Testament: and Paley, whilst 
labouring to support the same hypothesis as the above, 
makes the following admission ; — " Nor did Christ or his 
Apostles deliver, that we know of, any command to their 
disciples of the discontinuance upon that day (Lord's Day) 
of the common offices of their professions f." But if by the 
designation iC early Christians " it is intended to refer us 
to those of the third or fourth centuries, when but little 
of the Gospel remained, then doubtless there are but too 
visible "marks" of the wide-spread corruption of Reve- 
lation in doctrine, as well as in discipline and in institu- 
tions ; and not only was the Lord's Day observed, but, 
by some, the Jewish Sabbath in addition thereto ; and 
eventually the edict of Constantine imparted to it an ad- 
mixture of heathenism, by establishing the weekly festival 
of Sunday as the municipal law of the Roman empire J. 
But if Dr. Whately has adventured upon an untenable 
position as to these " marks" of the early Christians, he 
has most unanswerably met the reasoners of Dr. D wight's 
class, and also of some of his own Church, touching such 
other portions of this controversy as go to maintain that 
we can apply certain portions of the Jewish Sabbath to 
ourselves ; that we can alter the day from the seventh to 

* p. 11. f Paley, ii. 268. 

% See Alban Butler's Observances of the Catholic Church ; Archbishop 
Synge's Divine Authority of Church Government ; Bishop White On the 
Sabbath ; and Bishop Pearson On the Creed. 



THE "LORD'S DAY " NOT INSTITUTED. 197 

the first, or to any other day; and that we are to avail 
ourselves of tradition. 

"In saying/' saysDr. Whately, "that there is no mention 
of the Lord's Day in the Mosaic law, I mean that there is 
no mention of that specific festival which Christians ob- 
serve on theirs* day of the week; but there is not, as has 
sometimes been incautiously stated, any injunction to 
sanctify one day in seven-, it is not keeping holy some one 
day in every seven, but the seventh day. Now surely it is 
presumptuous to say that we are at liberty to alter a Di- 
vine command. One of the recorded offences of Jeroboam 
was his instituting a feast unto the Lord on the fifteenth 
of the tenth month, even the day that he had devised of 
his own heart." — It is not merely that the Apostles left no 
command perpetuating the observance of the Sabbath, and 
transferring the day from the seventh to the first, — since an 
express Divine command can be abrogated or altered only 
by the same power and by the same distinct revelation 
by which it was delivered, — but not only is there no such 
Apostolic injunction, — than which nothing less would be 
sufficient, — there is not even any tradition of such a 
change having been made; nay, more, it is even abun- 
dantly plain that they made no such change; and Heylyn, 
in the headings to one of his chapters, thus simply and 
truly places this portion of the investigation : — 

" 1 . That there is nothing found in Scripture touching 
the keeping of the Lord's Day." 

"2. Preparatives unto the dissolution of the Sabbath 
by our Saviour Christ." 

"3. The Lord's Day not enjoined in the place thereof, 
either by Christ or his Apostles ; but instituted by the 
authority of the Church." 

"4. Our Saviour's resurrection on the * first day ' of 



198 PALEY. DWIGHT. — WHATELY. 

the week, and his appearance on the same, make it not a 
Sabbath/' 

" 5. The first day of the week not made more than 
other (i. e. days) a Sabbath by Saint Peter, Saint Paul, or 
any other of the Apostles." 

"6, The preaching of St. Paul at Troas upon the first 
day of the week, no argument that there that day was set 
apart by the Apostles for religious exercises: collections* 
on the first day of the week conclude as little for that pur- 
posef." 

"The Lord's Day J was not advanced to that esteem 
which it now enjoys but leisurely and by degrees, partly 
by canons of particular councils, and partly by the de- 
cretals of several Popes and orders of several inferior 
prelates." 

Having concluded that which may be deemed the di- 
rect Scriptural evidence touching, 1 . The Paradisaical Sab- 
bath ; 2. The Jewish Sabbath ; 3. The Christian Sabbath, 
or Lord's Day, the points which remain have necessarily a 
very diminished degree of interest ; and, but for the au- 
thorities from whom they emanate, need hardly be em- 
bodied in an investigation, the essential features of which 
are as to the existence or non-existence of direct Scrip- 
tural facts and specific Divine authority. Paley§ asserts 
that the " conclusion from the whole inquiry is this : The 
assembling upon the first day of the week for the purposes 
of public worship and religious instruction is a law of 
Christianity of Divine appointment : the resting on that 
day from our employments longer than we are detained 
by attendance upon these assemblies is to Christians 
an ordinance of human institution, binding nevertheless 

* 1 Cor. xvi. 1. f See Heylyn, p. 400. 

X Heylyn. § vol. ii. p. 269- 



PALEY. — DWIGHT. — WHATELY. 199 

upon the conscience of every individual of a country 
in which a weekly Sabbath is established." This pass- 
age is singularly inconsistent with the apparent design, 
and with the facts also of Paley's own Essay. If it is a law 
of Christianity and of Divine appointment too, the citing 
of that law would supersede the whole of Paley's reasoning 
as to the expediency of its religious and civil benefits. 
Where is the law ? where the Divine appointment of any 
Sabbath excepting the Jewish ? and that Paley has himself 
shown is not now binding either " as to the day, the du- 
ties, or the penalties." It would be extremely difficult to 
reconcile the above passage with the tenor of this author's 
Essay, but for his situation in the national church, and 
doubtless a desire to work out with Scriptural authority, 
if possible, the position that the institution of a weekly 
Sabbath is so connected with the functions of civil life, 
and requires so much of civil law in its regulation and 
support, that " it cannot perhaps properly be made the 
ordinance of any religion, till that religion he received as 
the religion of the State" ! It might be satisfactory to 
have Dr. D wight's view of this position; he, as an Ameri- 
can, not having the privilege of living in a country which, 
according to Paley, is fitted to have the Sabbath, as an or- 
dinance of religion, established therein, — the Doctor's na- 
tion not being blessed with a State religion. "But Chris- 
tian ministers have no right, even should they think it ex- 
pedient, to encourage or tacitly connive at misconceptions 
on the subject*." 

The Archbishop of Dublin takes another ground. He, 
in common with Paley, having demonstrated that the pass- 
age in Genesis does not contain any institution, and that 
for the present observance of the Jewish Sabbath there is 
no authority, yet for the purpose of sustaining the pre- 

* SeeWhately, p. 24. 



200 AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH. 

sent Sabbath or "Lord's Day/' and as the "most effec- 
tual as well as the only justifiable means for accomplish- 
ing this object/' desires to place this duty on its "true 
foundation*"; this "true" foundation, as developed by 
the Archbishop, being " the power of the Church be- 
stowed by Christ himself, — which would alone be amply 
sufficient to sanction and enforce the observance, even in- 
dependent of Apostolic example and ancient usage." The 
law and the testimony are here, as in Paley's case, alike 
wanting. What is this power, which was thus indepen- 
dent of Apostolic example ? When was it bestowed, and 
upon what Church? The then Church (the Church of 
God), or any church or assembly in any subsequent age? 
And for what specific purposes ?-— -In another page the Arch- 
bishop solves some of the points of these inquiries. "The 
Apostles and their successors, even the Church, which he 
promised to be with e always, even unto the end of the 
world/ were endued with ample power to enact regulations, 
with a view to Christian edification ; and among the rest to 
set apart festival days, such as the Lord's Day, Christmas 
Day, Good Friday, Holy Thursday, &c.f" 

Was not this promise made to the Apostles, not to esta- 
blish ceremonial institutions, but to be with them until 
the end of the world, i. e. the end of the age, — that age, the 
then Apostolic age ? But where is the evidence that even to 
the Apostles the power was given of " setting apart "fes- 
tival days, as before cited ? Where is the instance of their 
having ever exercised that power ? And if given, were they 
to use it by the appointment, " for Christian edification," 
of " Good Friday, Holy Thursday/' &c, or were the 
Apostles to disregard, by the non-appointment of these 
festivals, the authority of their master; and that, too, when 

* See Advertisement to Dr. Whately's Pamphlet, 
f See Whately, pp.7, 21. 



THE NUMBER SEVEN. 201 

they, the Apostles, in their peculiar office and duties, had 
no successors, not even " the Church of God"} 

But the Archbishop proceeds : " Now to such persons 
(i. e. strenuous advocates for the observance of the Lord's 
Day,) it is very useful to show that an institution, which 
they would be very unwilling to see deprived of all Divine 
sanction, can derive such sanction from no other source 
than from the power conferred by Christ on every Chris- 
tian Church*." ! If every "Christian" Church is thus pos- 
sessed of such power, can each mould and form it agree- 
ably to their own conceptions ? And if so, may we not 
have a different and an opposing version from the Ca- 
tholic, the Greek, and each of the numerous Protestant 
Churches ? — and all this variety as to an assumed sacred 
and positive institution, the observance of which is held 
to be binding upon all. In evidence of how differently 
the positive institutions which really had the "Divine 
sanction" were enacted, there cannot be a better illustra- 
tion than is furnished by a reference to the Jewish Sab- 
bath ; and in relation to which, its duties and its penalties 
could not admit of mistake or allow of variation. 

The late Christian Advocate of Cambridge (the Rev. 
T. S. Hughes), differing from both the preceding authors 
as to the Paradisaical Sabbath, but agreeing with them 
as to the non-existence of Divine authority for the pre- 
sent observance of the Jewish Sabbath, thus proposes 
his theory for the strict observance of a Sabbath Day ; 
adopting, in common with several high authorities, and 
in addition to his advocacy of the present and universal 
applicability of the passage in Genesis, the somewhat 
puerile and antiquated argument drawn from the pecu- 
liarity of the number seven. Thus, " Seven days were 
allowed to Noah for collecting the animals into his ark ; 

* Whately, p. 28. 



202 THE RABBIES. THE PURITANS. 

seven days did that patriarch stay, and again other seven 
days he sent out the dove. Laban proposed to Jacob 
the service of seven years. Joseph mourned for his fa- 
ther seven days ; and a seven days' fast was observed by 
those who interred the bones of Saul. Seven bulls and 
seven rams were offered up as a burnt -offering ; seven 
altars built by Balaam ; and the number seven was held 
in equal reverence by the Pythagoreans and other philo- 
sophical sects *." And if this order of reasoning be le- 
gitimate to prove the existence of a Divine institution 
commanded to be of universal observance, the Reverend 
author, who is not singular f in this view, might have 
much extended this train of thought thus : — Philo so 
highly esteemed the number seven, that he considered 
there was not any man able sufficiently to extol it ! Hip- 
pocrates divided the life of man into seven ages, each 
age containing seven years ; the Pleiades consist of seven 
stars ; the moon quartereth every seventh day ; infants 
born in the seventh month may live; and some deem 
the seventh to be the critical day in most kinds of mala- 
dies ! ! ! — But these discoveries as to the virtues to be ex- 
tracted from the number seven, were much exceeded in 
nicety of discrimination and ceremonial allotment by cer- 
tain of the Rabbis as to the Jewish Sabbath. On Friday 
they pared their nails and whetted their knives, in readi- 
ness for the reception of the Sabbath. They taught that 
on the Sabbath a horse may have a bridle or a halter to 
lead, but not a saddle to load him ; a tailor must not wear 
his needle in his sleeve on the Sabbath Day ; the lame 
may use a staff, but the blind may not ; they must not 
rub their shoes on the ground, but against a wall ; and if 
a flea bite on the Sabbath, they might remove it, but not 

* See Hughes's Letter to Higgins, 1826, p. 12 — 14, 
f See King's Morsels of Criticism, 8vo edition. 



JAMES. THE " LORD'S DAY " IN LAW. 203 

kill it, but a louse they might kill ; — together with sundry 
other marvellous niceties, being akin in principle to cer- 
tain of their Christian fellow-labourers, even after the 
Protestant Reformation, and in this country. Thus it 
was preached in Oxfordshire, that to do any servile work 
or business on the Lord's Day, was as great a sin as to 
kill a man or to commit adultery. In Norfolk it was 
taught, that to make a feast or dress a wedding-dinner 
on the Lord's Day, was as great a sin as for a father to 
take a knife and cut his child's throat. In Suffolk it was 
preached, that to ring more bells than one on the Lord's 
Day, was as great a sin as to commit murder ! ! ! These 
extremes, however, as to the observance of what was 
called " the New Lord's Day Sabbath," induced a species 
of reaction, which was led by the very remarkable Royal 
Declaration, in which King James enacts, " That for his 
good people's lawful recreations his pleasure was, that 
after the end of divine service they should not be dis- 
turbed, letted, or discouraged from any lawful recreations, 
such as dancing for either men or women, archery for 
men, leaping, vaulting, nor any such harmless recreations, 
so as that the same be had in due time, without impedi- 
ment or let of divine service. Given at the Court at 
Greenwich, May 24, 1618." The unlawful games on Sun- 
days were bear- and bull-baiting, interludes, and bowling, 
by the meaner sort. 

The bishops, in the 12th of Elizabeth, provided a Bill 
for enforcing the observation of the " Lord's Day," and 
divers Bills were introduced into the legislature for the 
like purpose, especially one in the 27th of Elizabeth, en- 
titled, " A Bill for the better and more reverend obser- 
ving of the Sabbath Day:" it passed both houses, after 
much debating, but was denied the Royal assent. During 
the reigns of the Charleses several attempts of the same 



204 THE HEATHENS.— CONSTANTINE. 

kind were made, the last of which, when about to re- 
ceive the Royal assent, was stolen and not afterwards re- 
covered. 

The Lord's Day in English law is a civil as well as a 
religious institution, the forfeitures and penalties not ex- 
tending to the prohibiting the dressing of meat in fami- 
lies, or dressing or selling of meat in inns, cook-shops, or 
victualling-houses; nor to the selling of milk before nine 
o'clock in the morning or after four in the afternoon, or 
the selling of mackerel before or after " divine service." 
And in the case of an information against a magistrate for 
refusing to proceed upon an information against a baker 
who baked puddings and pies on Sunday, the Court held 
that it was not an offence within the Act, it being a work 
of necessity, and that it was better that one baker and 
his men should stay at home, than many families and ser- 
vants # . And amongst the nice distinctions drawn as 
to the Lord's Day, the following case from our law 
books may serve as an example. The plaintiff lived a 
mile from the church ; and going thither with his lady in 
his coach upon a Sunday, he was robbed, and, upon in- 
stituting an action against the hundred, recovered, the 
statute extending only to the case of travelling. Chief- 
Justice Pratt held, that if they had been robbed not going 
to church, but to make visits, they might not so have re- 
covered. 

From Hesioc 1 we learn that the heathens celebrated the 
seventh day of the month; and that the Jirst of the month 
was consecrated to Apollo, the fourth to Mercury, the 
seventh again to Apollo, and the eighth to Theseus. And 
Constantine, in embodying and nationalizing the unholy 
work of infusing heathenism into the doctrines of Reve- 

* See "Lord's Day " in Burn's Ecclesiastical Law, vol. ii. p. 414. 



DOMINUS SOL. 205 

lation, not only established Sunday, but also enjoined 
equally a rest upon Friday, and commanded them to be 
alike honoured, the one being "the day of our Redeemer's 
resurrection, the other that of his passion." He also 
established a variety of other festivals, in relation to 
which Heylyn innocently remarks*: "Nor did this pious 
prince confirm and regulate the Lord's Day only, but 
unto him we are indebted for many of those other festivals 
ivhich have been since observed in the Church of God!" 
When the Church was at perfect peace, it pleased the 
emperor to signify to all his deputies and lieutenants in 
the Roman empire, that they should have a care to see 
those memorials of the martyrs duly honoured, and solem- 
nize times or festivals to be appointed to that end in the 
churches ; and such of them as had been most eminent, 
as the Apostles and Evangelists, " St. Peter, St. Thomas, 
St. Paul, &c, were universally received and celebrated even 
as now they are, (and) as they are now observed in the 
Church of England\" 

Sunday J was dedicated by the heathens to the honour 
of the sun ; and it has been suggested, as the sun was 
called Dominus Sol, that the day appointed thereto was 
in the same way entitled Dies Dominica. The Persians 
named their god, the sun, Mithra, the Lord Mithra; and 
Porphyry, in his prayer to the sun, calls him Dominies Sol-, 
and most of the ancient nations gave the sun the epithet 
Lord, or Master, or some title equivalent Jthereto, as Ku- 
rios in Greek, and Dominus in Latin §. But be the sug- 
gestions in this paragraph as they may, in concluding 

* See Selden, De Jure Naturali et Gentium, and also Thomas Aquinas. 

f Heylyn, p. 425. 

I The names assigned to the several days of the week may be traced 
to the earliest periods of Egyptian, Chaldean and Persian history. 

§ See the Horce Sabbaticce, and also a note in the Modern Sabbath 
Examined, p. 108. See also Professor Lee's Sermon, p. 36. 



206 THE WORKS OF GOD. 

this argument, it may be safely held from the facts de- 
tailed, and the conclusions arising therefrom, that there 
is no Scriptural authority whatever for the present ob- 
servance of the seventh, or the first, or any other day, 
as an institution set apart by Divine authority, and com- 
manded either for partial or universal observance; and 
that the Lord's Day, as it is called, is, in common with 
the minor Church festivals, mainly of heathen original, and 
without any religious claim upon the believers in Divine 
Revelation. 

"The heavens declare the glory of God; and 

the firmament showeth his handywork there 

is no speech nor language, where their voice is 

NOT HEARD In THEM HATH HE SET A TABERNACLE 

FOR THE SUN*." 

* Psalm xix. 1, 3, 4. 



20/ 



CHAPTER IV. 

A NATIONAL SABBATH. 

The expediency of a periodical national day of rest, esta- 
blished by the legislature, as a purely civil institution, is 
a subject of much interest, presenting as it does many 
weighty considerations to the political oeconomist as well 
as to the moralist and the purely religious inquirer : 
and these considerations press with increased force from 
the admission of the preceding facts, that there is no 
Scriptural command for the present sanctification of any 
day whatever. 

It would probably be difficult to select any large com- 
munity by whom a day of rest could be more needed than 
by the inhabitants of London, subject as all classes therein 
are to the constant wear and tear of body and of mind, 
induced by their local position, by the ever-active compe- 
tition arising out of the concentration of knowledge, of 
capital, of skill, and of the density and extent of the 
population, and also the pressure of the public burthens. 
But then, as has been well stated by Dr. Whately, although 
in support of a conclusion differing from that which is now 
submitted, "I am convinced that the most effectual, as well 
as the only justifiable means for accomplishing this object 
(the observance of a day of rest,) will be found in the 
placing this duty on its true foundation." And hence 
might we not look to the legislature for such regulations 
in relation to it, as should preserve us from a violation of 
our personal liberties, and protect us from the puritanical 



208 A NATIONAL SABBATH. — EDGEWORTH's TOWN. 

ferocity of spiritual aggression, and the partial legislation 
of the gloomy, the ill-informed, the fanatical, or the pha- 
risaical ? 

An abstinence from our usual occupations being in- 
sured as a political institution, might not the mode of the 
observance be very safely left to the free choice of the 
people, when relieved from arbitrary and partial spiritual 
interdiction and denunciation, and false and impracticable 
views of religious obligation ? 

Must it necessarily follow, that on such a day recre- 
ation and pleasure and enjoyment should be injurious to 
the public weal, or calculated to lower the national tone 
of religious and moral feeling*? Would not religious 
communities assemble then, as now? Would the believers 
in the strict perpetuity of the Sabbath forgo their creed, 
or would they not continue to act and to believe in a 
similar manner to that in which Dr. Adam Clarke thus 
records his parents to have done? 

" Every Lord's Day was strictly sanctified: no manner 
of work was done in the family, and the children were 
taught from their earliest youth to sanctify the Sabbath. 
On that day she (Dr. Clarke's mother, a presbyterian,) 
took the opportunity to catechize and instruct her children, 

* In the year 1829 the author passed through Edgewbrth's Town, 
and was informed by Mr. Edgeworth, that as a means of improving 
the habits, and of contributing towards the innocent enjoyment of the 
people, he had appointed certain of the boys in his public school to 
entertain trie people with musical performances on the Sundays, after 
the hours of service at the Catholic chapel : the result, in weaning the 
people from the whiskey- shops, (with which even Edge worth's Town 
abounds,) was highly satisfactory ; but cant and mistaken views of re- 
ligious obligation interfered, and induced Mr. Edgeworth to forgo his 
enlightened and rational, and comparatively moral, arrangements for the 
benefit of his poorer countrymen : the music ceased, and the saints and 
the whiskey-shops again triumphed ! 



MISS MARTINEAU. 209 

would read a chapter, sing a portion of a psalm, and then 
go to prayer*/' 

And would not a more enlightened class of believers 
still avail themselves of such a day of rest, somewhat 
in accordance with the interesting picture thus drawn, 
by an admirable female writer of the present day, of a re- 
ligious emigrant family buried in the American forests, 
yet continuing to cultivate, under the direction of Dr. 
Sneyd, all their former scientific and moral and religious 
tastes f? "But do you not find it pleasanter to go to 
worship, as we went this morning, through green pas- 
tures, and by still waters, where human industry made 
its appeal to us in eloquent silence, and men's dwellings 
bore entire the aspect of sabbath repose, than to pass 
through paved streets with a horizon of brick walls, and 
tokens on every side not only of week-day labour, but of 

struggles for subsistence and subservience for bread ? 

There may be more immediate pleasure in one sabbath 
walk than another, Arthur, but they yield perhaps equally 
the aliment of piety. Whatever indicates the condition 
of man, points out not only the species of duty owing to 
man, but the species of homage due to God, — the charac- 
ter of the petitions appropriate to the season. All the 
methods of going to worship may serve the purpose of 
preparation for the sanctuary. The nobleman may lean 
back in his carriage to meditate; the priest may stalk 
along in reverie, unconscious of all around him ; the citi- 
zen father may look with pride on the train of little ones 

* Life of Adam Clarice, LL.D., vol. i. 1833. 

\ Illustrations of Political Economy, No. XXITl., "Briery Creek," 
by Harriet Martineau. The character of Dr. Sneyd has apparently 
been sketched from the pursuits, condition and views of the late Dr. 
Priestley whilst banished to America by the ignorance and ferocity of 
his countrymen, acting under and excited by a barbarous and wicked 
Tory Government. 

P 



210 THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 

with whom he may spend the leisure of this day; and the 
observing philanthropist may go forth early and see a 
thousand instances by the way; and all may alike, enter 
the church door with raised and softened hearts, .... and 
all listen with equal faith to the promise of peace on earth 

and good will to men Yes, and the observer not the 

least, if he observe for holy purposes •" 

Might not literary and scientific societies be greatly ex- 
tended, and amongst all classes, down to the very poorest ; 
and, by their members assembling on this day, with a con- 
sciousness that in so doing they were violating neither a 
human nor a divine law, greatly tend to increase the know- 
ledge, the morality, and the consequent civilization and 
religion and happiness of the people ? And why should not 
the British Museum, the National Gallery (when we have 
one), and other public institutions, be open to the people 
on Sundays ? And would not such cultivation of the pub- 
lic mind tend to wean one class from social pursuits of an 
injurious tendency, and others from secluded and profit- 
less self-gratification ? 

Would not such a day of rest tend to relieve religion 
from the imputations which the conduct of certain of its 
privileged professors in high places tends to affix to it, by 
their busy interference with the poor man's Sunday oc- 
cupations'* (often of necessity and not of choice,) and 
amusements, and their non-interference with the Sunday 
pursuits, the entertainments, and the pleasures of the rich 
and powerful f? 

• " I must appear important, big as a country pedagogue ; .... I'll 
swell like a shirt bleaching in a high wind, and look burly as a Sun- 
day beadle, when he has kicked down the unhallowed stall of a profane 
old apple woman." — Tobin's Honeymoon, Act III. 

f The present Bishop of London recently interdicted the perform- 
ance of "sacred music" in public rooms on a Sunday evening. Does 
Dr. Blomfield ever accept an invitation to Windsor on Sundays? or has 



WINDSOR ON SUNDAYS. — SCOTCH SANCTITY. 211 

Can it be beneficial to society, or tend to check the 
perpetration of crime, that the walls of our prison-cells 
should be pasted over with absurd tales, and statements 
of the conversions of criminals, who are made to centre 
the cause of all their evil propensities, and wicked habits, 
and vile associations, in the fact of their having been first 
tempted of the devil to become Sabbath-breakers ? 

Can the present unsettled manner of estimating Sun- 
day, and of the various modes of observing it, be conducive 
to the advancement of religion or the benefit of society ? 
for, not to dwell upon the opposing practices amongst the 
European continental nations, and those of the Greek, and 
Catholic, and Protestant communities, the test of sound- 
ness in the Sabbatical faith is very variable, even under 
the same national government and in nearly the same 
district of country. Thus in some of the southern coun- 
ties of Ireland the song and the dance are Sunday after- 
noon occupations, whilst amongst certain of the northern 
inhabitants of the same island an almost pharisaical at- 
tention to Sunday exists. Throughout Scotland, public 
conveyances proceed only on the six "lawful days," — 

he suggested to His Majesty, as the head of the Church, the profanation 
of reviewing the troops on Sunday mornings, and of allowing the mili- 
tary bands on the terrace and in the gardens to play on Sunday even- 
ings ? although such occupations doubtless contribute towards the en- 
joyment of the public, and evince the liberal and kindly feelings of the 
King. 

A party, upon being conducted on a Sunday through the interior 
of Windsor Castle, remarked to the attendant, whilst looking at the 
kitchen, upon the great activity then pervading that interesting depart- 
ment of the royal residence ; the reply was, " Our very busiest day, 
Sir, is Sunday." What is Dr. Blomfield's opinion, in this case, of the 
Jewish command, " The seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy 
God: in it thou shalt not do any worJc, .... nor thy manservant, nor thy 
maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle ; . . . . that 
thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou."} 

p2 



212 AMERICAN SANCTITY. 

with, however, such exceptions as the following. Stages 
do not travel on Sunday, but the mail does. The man in 
middling circumstances cannot hire a pleasure horse on 
Sunday, but the man of fortune travelling in his own car- 
riage may do so. The Scotch smacks and steam-boats 
do not leave Leith for London on Sunday, but they do 
leave London for Leith on that day. The Scotch shop- 
keepers on their route to the metropolis are said to have 
two consciences ; they will not proceed on their journey 
on Sunday whilst in Scotland, but when across the border 
their scruples so far give way as to allow them readily to 
avail themselves of the facilities of English travelling; 
and upon the occasion of the visit of George IV. to Edin- 
burgh, all the public stages, and every variety of vehicle, 
plied for hire on Sunday ! ! ! 

In the United States also there are similar inconsis- 
tencies. Thus, whilst at Boston, the author was pro- 
ceeding on a Sunday to the village of Quincy, and his 
conductor had to exercise all his ingenuity and his local 
knowledge to be enabled to effect, through the back lanes 
and by-paths, an escape out of the town of Boston, lest 
he should have been even seen, "upon the Sabbath Day," 
other than on his way to church. At New York, although 
a city not deemed to be righteous overmuch, chains are 
placed across all the main thoroughfares ; whilst, under 
the same Government, at New Orleans, the stores, mar- 
kets, theatres, gambling-houses, and ball-rooms are open 
on Sunday ; and the parties reputed the most ready to 
fall into the extremes of this southern capital, are said to 
be the puritanical emigrants from New England ! 

Can these things accord with the great truths of Reve- 
lation, or be conducive to a healthy state of the public 
morals ? Their results, indeed, may be successful in manu- 
facturing hypocrites, but must be inimical to the fostering 



ROBINSON OF CAMBRIDGE. 213 

of religious principle or the cultivating mental integrity. 
And as to the pharisaical and aristocratical tenet, that 
the "lower orders" may abuse the freedom which an en- 
tire day in seven would confer upon them, it may be re- 
plied, that they have that day now ; that, despite of the 
presumed sanctity of the day, they are still accused of its 
violation 5 and also that, generally, holy days are misused 
by them. Robinson of Cambridge has, however, quaintly 
but well remarked, "As to holydays, let the poor take as 
many as they can afford and their masters can spare ; . . . . 
far be it from us to wish to abridge their liberty, or di- 
minish their little enjoyment of life ; but let us not make 
religion of their gambols, nor enrol their pastimes among 
the laws of Jesus Christ*." And to all classes, whether 
in relation to an observance of the Sabbath, or any other 
religious festival, the sentiments in another work of the 
same author may not be unprofitably studied ; for, " let 
the rites of Judaism be what they may, Christians are not 
bound to perform them because they were instituted by 
Moses ; . . . . but it must be proved that Jesus, his suc- 
cessor and a legislator like him, hath re-ordained them. 
.... Jewish ceremonies are to be considered now only as 
Pagan rites are considered, namely, histories of past ages, 
but not as laius of the present timesf." And being con- 
vinced that Jesus has not re-ordained either these or any 
other ceremonial observances, we may finish this investi- 
gation, and contemplate man thus described by the phi- 
losopher, and the duties of man thus proclaimed by the 
prophet : — 

" The beauty and permanency of the heavens, and the 
principle of conservation belonging to the system of the 
universe, the works of the eternal and divine Architect, 

* History and Mystery of Good Friday, by Robert Robinson, p. 25. 
f Robinson's History of Baptism, (American edition,) p. 31. 



214 THE PROPHET MICAH. 

were finely opposed to the perishing and degraded works 
of man" (?. e, the ruins at Rome,) "in his most active and 
powerful state ; and at this moment so humble appeared 
to me the condition of the most exalted beings belong- 
ing to the earth, so feeble their combinations, so minute 
the point of space and so limited the period of time in 
which they act, that I could hardly avoid comparing the 
generations of man, and the effects of his genius and 
power, to the swarms of luceoli or fire-flies which were 
dancing around me, and that appeared flitting and spark- 
ling amidst the gloom and darkness of the ruins, but 
which were no longer visible when they rose above the 
horizon, their feeble light being utterly obscured in the 
brightness of the moonbeams in the heavens *." 

"Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of 
rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil ? . . . . 
he hath showed thee, o man, what is good; and 
what doth the lord require op thee, but to do 
justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly 

WITH THY GoDf?" 

* Sir Humphry Davy's Consolations in Travel, 1830, p. 13. 
f Micah vi. 7, 8. 



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